


The Lost boy

by Beathas



Category: X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men Evolution
Genre: Alternate Origin Story, Angst, Child Abuse, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Superpowers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-17 02:37:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 35,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11842203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beathas/pseuds/Beathas
Summary: Scott Summers is blind, locked up by a criminal and determined to make a final stand against the man's evil ways. He has no hope for the future. In the meantime, Jean Grey and Logan help Professor Xavier search for a missing mutant child. Cross posted on Fanfiction.net





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I always wanted to know Scott's and Jean's Origin Stories for X-men evolution. So I wrote a story. I've followed some of the canon origin for Scott and mixed in a bit of my own ideas as well as trying to bring it in line with the Evolution Universe. It is likely AU from the Cartoon, but I found the characters would not head in the direction I had originally planned. There is only a hint of the beginning of the x-men.  
> Disclaimer: I do not own any Marvel story or Character. I am borrowing them for the simple purpose of practising my craft.  
> Chapter one

**Chapter one**

**SCOTT**

**I** can't remember most of the years before the plane crash. There are bits and pieces floating around in my head, glimpses of the forgotten man and woman who were my parents. They loved my brother and me. I know that much. At least the thought is so firmly entrenched in my head that until I realized how much of what I thought were memories were mingled with nightmares I never questioned that belief. Maybe it is simply another delusion that I have wrapped myself up in, but I need to believe that they loved me, so I refuse to let the ugliness that is my life warp the image of a good man and woman.

My name is Scott Summers. The story of my life, what I can make out of my jumbled memories and nightmares could be summed up in the words of an old saying. Out of the frying pan and into the fire. Over and over again.

I was eight years old when the plane crash took the lives of my family and left me with brain damage to a seemingly useless part of my brain as well as shaking up all my memories up and leaving me unsure what really had happened. My miraculous survival and recovery were soon overshadowed by the neglect and even abuse in most of the foster homes in which I landed. I never lasted long in a home. I've always been a fighter, even when I know I can't win, so I'd stand up again and again to whatever bully or brutal foster parent was my newest challenge. In the one home I think was actually good they decided not to keep me because of the terrible headaches that had begun to plague me. They just could not handle my special needs.

Then my life truly shattered into pieces when I was twelve and the worst, most debilitating headache I had ever suffered turned into the raw outpouring of red energy that pounded a hole straight through the wall, breaking one of the other foster kid's wrist and leaving the man of the house in a coma. I was a freak, something called a mutant. No foster home, no one wanted to take me in after that. The energy just wouldn't shut off. The only way to stop it was with my own body.

I was put in Juvenile Detention and left locked up in solitary for months, blind and growing terribly sick from lack of sunlight, though I didn't know that was why I was getting so weak. No one knew what to do with me and everyone was terrified of me. When a scientist offered to take me in and see what he could learn about my power, the social workers leapt at the chance. I never found out how deeply they researched the claims of the man who came to get me. I hope they were fooled and did not deliberately hand me over to the man called Nathaniel Essex.

At first, I thought perhaps this man would help me. He soon realized that I turned sunlight into energy. However, my hopes were dashed within days of my recovery. This man did not care about me, but only about the secrets my body, my genetic code could reveal. I was only a lab rat and he pushed me to my utter limits trying to learn the scope of my power. I can remember only bits and pieces of this time. One particularly horrible experiment left me in a coma, once more stealing my memories.

When I came out of it, I was in a hospital. Someone had discovered Essex's work and apparently, it was illegal. He was arrested and his company was shut down. I was found at this time and once more was returned to the care of the social system. By now, I was very aware that they would shove me off into the nearest person who would take me, letting that person use me as they wished. However, as I said, I'm a fighter. I don't give up.

I ran away. In hindsight, it was almost laughable that I believed I could take care of myself better than anyone else. I was blind and had only just woken up from the coma. I'm still not sure how I even got out of the hospital without knowing where I was going. I ended up on the streets and learned my way around through the kindness of strangers.

The streets are a dangerous place to anyone, never mind for someone blind and more helpless than the rest. I stubbornly stuck it out. Any pride I had once borne had been stripped from me in Essex's lab. I begged, I stole, I did whatever I had to survive. As always, I was good at what I had chosen for myself. I never became anyone's slave on the street. I made a reputation for myself with a few, careful demonstrations of my power. Soon I had a small rag tag group of runaways who would seek out the alleys I laid claim too in hopes that I would protect them from the pimps and gangs seeking new meat.

It was cold and we never had enough to eat, though my perceived blindness earned me a little more money through begging than the others, yet this was one of the happiest times in my life that I can remember. There were a few bad parts, like the nightmares and headaches that pounded at me, or the day I lost one of the kids I had grudgingly started to protect. But all in all I was happy. I was in control and I had the beginnings of a family.

It was during this time that I learned Braille. There was a library near the territory I staked out and protected with my power. On Saturdays and in the afternoons when we knew the schools were not in session and a group of kids wouldn't be so unusual we sought the warmth out and pretended like we were studying. We did not fool the librarians, but they ignored us, close enough to the streets to know we weren't part of the gangs, that we were just struggling to survive in a life that was still better than the hell we had all suffered before. One of my kids felt sorry that I could not even have the enjoyment of reading, so she sought out some Braille books and spent the afternoons helping me learn the new language. Soon even I was able to find relief in the world of books.

Then the bottom of my world dropped out again. There was a raid on our alleys. Five of my six charges were captured by the police. I was arrested when I tried to frighten them off, but I couldn't bring myself to actually use the power to hit the police. I spent three days in lock up before I was to be transferred to a Juvenile hall. The van they took me in was carjacked and that is how I met Jack Winters.

Jack is a con man, a leader of a gang who had heard of my power. He had reported my scraggly group of children to the police as if he was a concerned citizen, but it was only to separate me from the children that I would fight to the death for. He only wanted me. He only wanted the power I created. I was to be his new secret weapon.

I've lived with Jack for nearly a year now. I think I'm fourteen, but I can't count time anymore. When Jack is not using me to terrifying his gang into submission or to break into places he keeps me locked up in an underground room. He's smart enough to figure things out. He somehow is able to know when my headaches come on and when I'll be at my weakest, unable to withstand him for long. That's not to say I won't try. I'm always fighting him, always refusing to give up. No matter how many times he has made me hurt someone or break something I make him work for it. I force him to punish me severely before I open my eyes, forcing him to pick his battles so he doesn't kill his 'weapon'.

One day soon, I think I can hold out long enough to be unable to open my eyes, to be too weak to obey him. My pain tolerance is growing. I maybe the ugliest, scrawniest, freakiest kid in the world, but I am growing stronger in my resolve. One day I will make my stand and not give up. One day Jack will have the choice to either kill me or let me refuse to do his dirty work.

One day I will manage to bring this to a climax and I will escape this life, one way or the other. Through death or freedom. I do not plan to live as a slave, as a tool, as a plaything of Jack Winters any longer.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

**LOGAN**

**C** huck sat at his desk, building something. He was concentrating so hard on his work that he didn't even hear my heavy steps. Thanks to the metal fused to my bones, my tread is rather loud. Ororo thinks I'm crazy and Chuck thinks my heightened senses make me far more aware of the noise I make. I can sneak up on Stormy when she is busy with her weather playing on a good day, but Chuck's mental abilities means that he nearly always knows I'm coming.

"Whatchya working on?" I inquire. Inquire, not ask, mind you. Chuck's a brainiac. Sometimes I find myself using his bigger words or more genteel way of phrasing something. If I didn't trust this guy with my life, I'd suspect he was playing with my mind. But since Ororo's courtly ways sometimes rub off on me, and I've even caught Chuck using one of my infamous words I think it's just living in the same house that does it.

"Logan. I didn't hear you come in," The wheelchair bound man set his tiny tools down and looked fondly at me. It still boggles the mind to think that this rich, powerful guy is my friend. I ain't the most likable person in the world. Losing all memories of who you are, working as a secret project for the military and having metal bones can mess with a person's mind and personality. I like to think my personality is part of me, too, like a piece of me that wasn't ripped away. Xavier, that's his real name, has been helping me try to recover that lost part of me for years. I was searchin' and searchin' for years. I can't really wear myself out, since I heal so fast. But my mind ain't the same. It seems to wear out a good deal faster. So one day Xavier tells me to stop running, to stop searching, at least for a time, and just rest and enjoy being alive. Best idea Chuckie's ever had. (I did take note that he made this suggestion after he had helped Miss African Princess and she was taking refuge in his home. Meddling matchmaker.)

"Yeah, yer really into that little contraption," I said. "What is it?" My stubborn nature usually sated my curiosity.

"This is a cerebral enhancer," He replied, with an enigmatic smile. I raised my eyebrows to show my curiosity was not sated. Xavier smiled wider and rested his hands on the silver helmet with an array of wires running from what I assumed was strategic points on the skull to a control board. "I designed it to give me greater range and more control to assist in my search for other mutants."

"Who are you looking for?" I asked, eyeing the gizmo with faint mistrust, wisps of the lost memories reminding me of the unknown machines that had forced metal onto my bones and given me the fighting claws I barely kept sheathed with the hackles rising on my neck. I trusted Chuck, strange to say. He was a good man, although rather naïve in his own way.

"I hope to use this to help me track down mutants in a more timely fashion. Perhaps had I found you or Ororo earlier neither of you would have suffered the indignities you did at the hands of the world," He answered.

"Or you might have found yourself in the hands of the military or been chased down like a criminal like Storm," I retorted. "What made you think of this Cerebro thingy?"

He smiled and I suspected I had not pronounced the word correctly, but didn't care. Then a sad look came to his quiet eyes. "I have been searching for a certain mutant child for over a year now. I first heard of him through a contact in the social services, a boy who seems to have no control over a deadly power emitting from his eyes. He had been in an experimental lab for several months before the scientists illegal work was exposed. However before I was able to come to see the boy myself, he ran away."

"Well he couldn't have gone far with no control over his power."

"I doubt he did go far. However when he closes his eyes his psionic signature is muted. I can sense faint traces of it with my mind. Since only his own body seems to be able to contain the energy he keeps his eyes closed at all time."

"Yer saying a blind kid has eluded you for over a year?"

"We think he was briefly in police custody but he seems to have disappeared and this time I think he had help, and not of the kind that I have wanted to offer him. Storm has done some of the legwork in searching for this young man, but though I have had very brief moments of sensing him they last hardly longer than a few seconds and are usually accompanied by long bursts of pain. I hope this Cerebro, as you term it, may enhance my own psychic abilities so that I may follow the muted traces of this boy's psionic signature."

I nodded, understanding what the good Professor meant to use the contraption for and the reasons his good heart was spurred to build it to save one child. I yawned and felt hope that this new project might give me something to do, other than tear up the basement room Storm and I had turned into a sparring grounds. "Anything I could do to help?" I asked. I doubted he needed my assistance in finishing building the thing. I was very good with mechanical work, but not the smaller stuff like computers.

"Indeed. I need to do a test run with someone with whose signature I am familiar. Would you take a trip out of my natural psychic range so that I may seek you with the assistance of Cerebro?" He positively grinned like a schoolboy, excited by the prospect of expanding his already impressive psychic range. The idea lit me up as well. I was always good at the hiding and running games.

"I'd love too." I agreed without more than a moment's consideration.

Cerebro, as my twisted tongue had christened the Professors invention, was completed a few days later. Storm and I had planned a careful route without the professor's knowledge and she was positively glowing with girlish excitement in our experiment. I had learned more about the missing mutant teenager from her than the preoccupied Chuck and what little we could learn about the messed up life the kid had gone through inspired me to renew my determination to assist this new project. I ain't got much faith in anything or anyone except Chuck. I knew he wasn't gonna give up till he had found and assisted this missing child.

So I set off in the dead of night one wonderful cool, starry night and I drove without stopping for anything but gas and food for nearly two days straight. By then I was out of Chuck's psychic range and was four states away. I stopped to rest in a town and began my circuitous route, waiting for the professor to find me. I did not have to wait long. It was only midday of the first day when I felt the familiar pressure growing in my head that told me someone wanted in. The intruder spoke to me in the professor's voice and then Storm, Chuck and I had a celebratory hurrah though we were a couple thousand miles away from each other.

I headed straight back, fully believing the professor would have located our missing quarry by the time I arrived. In this belief, I was to be disappointed. I came back to the mansion to find Storm tending to a nearly catatonic Chuck.

"What happened?" I demanded gruffly.

"He used Cerebro to track young Summers down. He was able to follow the signature to the child's mind, but he was unable to make contact. The boy's shields were so powerful Charles nearly became entrapped by them. He pulled out so quickly it seems to have hurt him."

"So we failed?" I felt a sickening twist in my stomach.

"I do not know. Charles is still recovering and working on recalling what little he learned. He fears the boy may not know where he is and if that is so Charles would have to try to leap from the boy to someone near him. However that point is moot unless Charles can make contact with the boy."

I was shocked that someone could have mental shields powerful enough to hurt Chuck. My own shields were barely strong enough to make him work a little. Storm's mutant link to the weather gave her a natural strength, but even she could not shut the Professor of completely. I went into the Professors room. He was lying flat on the bed, hands folded on his chest as he stared up at the ceiling with a thoughtful look.

"Oh, Logan. I'm glad you're back. I assume Storm has told you of my failure."

"I wouldn't call it a failure," I retorted.

"Oh, my failure was not in my inability to find out his location, Logan, but in expecting his mind to be open. I should have been able to anticipate that his mind, which seems to be the only part of his life he has any privacy and control of, to be locked down tight," He answered. "No. When my mind has recovered I shall know how to proceed."

"You don't plan on using Cerebro again!" I grasped the idea floating around in his mind even with no telepathy of my own. "Charles, Storm said you were unconscious for several hours."

"Yes, but that was because I brazenly went in, expecting to have control. Young Scott's attention must be won, along with his trust. I think I have an idea on how to do this, however it may take some time. In the mean time, Storm and you should continue the normal searches. I glimpsed enough of our young mutants mind to fear he may not have that time left."

I left him to sleep them, determined to seek Storm out so she could help me form a logical end to the Professors mad attempts to use his dangerous gizmo.

The next day was Tuesday. Tuesday was one of the brightest days of the week for our lives because on Tuesday little redheaded Jeanie Grey came for her weekly instruction. Fourteen year old Jean Grey was the privileged daughter of Doctors John and Eileen Grey, intelligent engineers, who had been upset by their daughters active x-gene, but had sought to help her adjust rather than kick her out as a freak. The bright, green-eyed nymph was a favorite of us all. Dr. Hank McCoy, an old student of Xavier's from his University teaching days, often chose to visit his mentor and good hearted friend on those days merely to have his life brightened by the every burning cheeriness and kindness that was in the powerful girls hands.

It was a symptom of our concern that we forgot all about Jean's coming. She was a strong telepath and telekinetic who had been shut out of the social life she had loved by uncontrollable surges in her powers. Chuck had helped her regain control and was teaching her the finer arts of telepathy. She had rejoined her friends. Once more, she became happy go lucky girl who enjoyed her growing control and use of her unique powers.

Xavier was up and out of bed. A good night's sleep and the bare bones of a new plan had restored him to much of his former strength. Storm and I cornered him at the breakfast table and began to calmly (at first) lay out or objections to him reusing the Cerebro. He listened with a knowing smile that irked me. He was a really good guy and all, but he was so naive all the time. Did he really think he could keep from being hurt?

"Logan, Ororo, I appreciate your concern, but I have grave concerns that if we do not find Scott Summers soon his situation may become deadly," He informed us. "I do mean to try again, with more caution this time."

I lost my temper and stood up, railing at him for his carelessness, pointing out that he was more valuable to us unharmed and that he should not risk his life so freely for one person when there were other paths to take to discover the missing boy. He grew hot himself and demanded if I wanted to abandon the search, even though he was positive that the boy was a slave to some very evil men and that the boy's life was in terrible danger as his will to defy them was growing.

It was the moment when Storm entered the fray with a few choice words and a harsh wind that a new voice interrupted our disagreement.

"Oh, what fun! What are we arguing about?" And there stood Jeanie in all her fire headed glory, grinning at us around the deep colored doorframe, her green eyes glowing with the hints of her power as she began to lift several cups of water in the air with a mischievous look. Only that girl could have gotten away with threatening us with water to stop our argument. We must have looked ridiculous to her. My claws had extended in the heat, though I was not pointing them at either of my fellow combatants. Storms eyes were white as the wind whipped around us and Charles face showed that he was ready to thrust his mind over Storm and I to turn the argument into a telepathic one, where he was sure to win.

All three of us shut down, sat down (Storm and I had risen from the table to add emphasis to our points) and the threatening wind died away. Jean deposited the cups on the table before us, sauntered up to the head of the table and leaned on it, looking across the long table straight into Chuck's eyes. Her eyes grew unfocused as did his and I knew they were communicating in the strange world they both controlled.

Storm and I waited it out, wondering how much he would let the girl know and how much she would weasel out of him with her own considerable powers. It was nearly ten minutes before they returned to our level of communication and Jean had a victorious smirk on her face. "I think I should give Cerebro a try. Perhaps a woman's touch may succeed where a man's might fail," She winked and tossed her red hair over his shoulder.

"No!" The three of us cried together.

"Well then I guess it only leaves the Professor. Oh, come Logan, Ororo. He does mean what he said. He went in to hard and fast, and wasn't expecting resistance. When you know that resistance is coming it is much different," She said. Then her smile faded. "And Scott Summers is in grave danger."

Ororo and I looked at each other, aware that we had been defeated by a fourteen-year-old girl and not sure we liked it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

**SCOTT**

**I** had just recovered from one of my bad migraine headaches and was lying on the filthy cot in my basement cell breathing in the cool air and hoping I would not have one of my occasional relapses back into the nauseating pain. Jack had been down in my room yesterday afternoon, needling me and demanding I give him a promise not to fight. He only left when I threw up. Even he knew that when I was in that much pain it overshadowed any fear I had of him.

The room was cold, but it assisted in the recovery of my head. Although I was dressed only in the same dirty pair of sweats I had been wearing since my kidnapping and though the air snaked cool arms around my naked torso I enjoyed the shivers since no sharp pains followed them. My hands were encased in cold handcuffs that were kept chained to a prison belt. This was done so that I could not remove the duct tape that was wrapped around my eyes and blast my way out of my prison. Jack had also recently taken to fastening another cuff around one of my ankles with a short chain keeping me attached to my bed at all times.

I think he was afraid I was getting physically stronger. This may have only been another delusion of my scarred mind but like the belief in my parents love, it gave me strength to prepare for the coming fight.

Jack knew I was physically weakened by the headaches and that only a bout of sunlight and a release of the pent up energy could completely restore me. He also denied me the sunlight unless I opened my eyes when he demanded it, to blow down a door, or hit a man who had disobeyed him. When I would cave into his demands after whatever punishment he chose to mete out he would leave me greatly weakened for hours before taking me to some out of the way country field where I could wander for an hour or so to recharge my energy stores. He knew how to rule my life between the headaches and the fear. I knew that he would be coming for me soon with some job or other in mind.

Tonight I promised myself I would not give in no matter what he did to me. Tonight I would gain my freedom through death or through losing my fear.

I lay still, resting and conserving my strength. I had been down in this basement so long that I had contrived several ways to pass the long, boring hours that I was abandoned to my cruel, solitary prison. Most of the time I used to organize my memories and create my own private world within my mind, by building walls around the privacy within my mind. No one could touch me there. Sometimes I would work out hard math problems, or calculate the angle needed to blow the door or ceiling down with my optic beams.

I was in the middle of one such equation, imagining getting my hands free and blowing a hole straight up to the sunlight and climbing out and running and finding my freedom away from Jack and all the evil he had done to me. Then I heard the key in the lock. I knew the door could only be opened (with a normal handle and not by being blown off its hinges) on the other side. I tensed. A normal sickening churning filled my stomach. I believed Jack had a job, but sometimes he, or a couple others, came down simply to play with me. They thought of me as a tool and a toy, enjoying my pain and panic.

Jack entered the room. He had a certain confident tread that I had learned to distinguish from the others. Two others entered with him. I was familiar with their footsteps. Knuckles (and I could attest that he was aptly nicknamed) and Baggy Pants. I had never learned Baggy Pants real name or nickname and had bestowed that moniker on him because he never wore anything but clothes that were two or three times to big for him.

They tossed something cloth onto my body. It was a big sweatshirt. It was a job and not merely torture time. Jack unlocked my hands with his usual warning that a gun was pointed straight at my head and let me pull the shirt over my body. He twisted the belt around so that the handcuffs were behind me and refastened me into the harness. I had once managed to use my hands in a clever way when they had kept my hands in front of me. Since then I was pinioned as carefully as possible when being taken out of my prison.

The sweatshirt hood was yanked up over my head and the manacle around my ankle was unfastened. Knuckles forced me to my feet and started leading me out of the room. I made no move to fight. They hadn't told me what they wanted me to do this time and I was going to pick the right time to make my stand. Besides there was more hope that if I fought them while on a job that they would be caught. I didn't doubt that I would go to jail with them for my part in the numerous break-ins. I was a freak and no one would understand that I was coerced into this life of crime. But the thought of Jack and the others facing time for what they were doing, even if it wasn't for what they had done to me, was sweet justice.

My feet were bare. Jack had taken my shoes away from me right away, believing it would help keep me from escaping. After all the brutal things they had forced upon me I wondered why he thought bruised and bleeding feet would really keep me from running if I ever got the chance. Besides, prior to being chained to my bed I had paced my room daily, my soles hardening on the concrete floor.

A hard hand slapped the back of my head. I winced as it jarred a brief pain free, and I feared my headache would return. That was probably Jack's reminder of how he could easily control every aspect of my life. He truly believed that I belonged to him, body, mind and spirit. I don't think he'd ever truly met someone who would face his or her fears to fight him and he just thought I was crazy. I think I might be crazy.

I had never seen the stairs or hallway they led me through but my sense of direction was astounding. I seemed to have a built in compass as well as an instinctive knowledge of the strengths and weakness of whatever I was faced with destroying. They did not speak, but I knew we were headed to the garage.

When we passed out of the hallway into the chill of the garage, they picked me up and shoved me into a large metal dog kennel. I heard the click of the lock they slammed in place to keep me from opening my cage, though how I was expected to do that when my body was crushing my hands into the thin metal bars I had yet to figure out. Once I heard the van doors slam shut against the cage I shifted off my hands, rolling onto my side. I was even more cramped than last time. I had grown taller. I could neither sit up nor lie in a comfortable position.

I could only hope the drive to our latest crime would be a short one.

My hopes were dashed and it was nearly an hour before the van came to a stop. By this time, I was aching and numb in various places from my cramped position. My head threatened to begin pounding. My resolve wavered briefly. It would be so easy to give in to Jack and just open my eyes when he ordered me to. But I had never taken the easy way with Jack and I knew that once I gave in he would own me. It was not my pride that demanded my fight; it was my innate sense of right and wrong. Another thing I believed my parents had instilled in me.

The back of the van opened and two pairs of hands hauled me out of my cage. The van drove off and I heard the sharp snipping sound of metal being cut. So we weren't breaking into a residential area, but a commercial area. Jack was probably after some chemicals to sell on the black market. I was pulled through the newly opened slit in the metal fence and led across a vast, empty parking lot. My heart beat faster with every step.

Suddenly we stopped and I heard Jack clear his throat. The strong hands that held my chained hands grew tighter. My battle had come.

"Let's not go through our whole fiasco, kid. All you got to do is open your eyes and then you are done. I'll even buy you a real dinner if you do it," Jack said. I pressed my lips together and squeezed my covered eyes even tighter. Jack's fingers pressed into my temple and he tore the duct tape off, reopening the welts caused by the previous times tape had been torn off my face. "Well?" He demanded.

I stood in silence. It wasn't worth talking and any mouthing off would end with me and a broken jaw and (assuming I survived this) then I wouldn't be able to eat. I let my inaction speak for me. The grips on my arms grew tighter and I could feel the bruises start anew on my weak biceps. Jack sighed as if he really hated that he would force me to obey him.

 _Treat it like a headache. You can't stop a headache. You can't stop this either._ I told myself. I could not open my eyes and make all the pain stop. It was as simple as this. I was becoming very good at giving myself delusions. There was no doubt in what little bit of my mind that fought to surrender and survive that I had truly gone crazy.

When Jack's modified Taser bit my throat the rest of my body screamed out for me to agree with the fading spark of survival. But I sternly reminded my weak body that survival in hell wasn't truly survival. I gritted my teeth and took each and every shocking burn Jack dolled out in complete silence, moving to my private walls that surrounded my precious memories. I felt and listened to my body through this veil and continued to remind my traitorous body that it was better to die than suffer in Jack's hands one more day.

Then they started punching me in the stomach. I threw up blood. They kicked me and demanded my obedience. From within my private haven I watched and let the pain wash over me, accepting it with the calmness I used to deal with the headaches. My body panicked, but my mind did not.

All this could not have lasted longer than five minutes. Jack and his men did not have any more time to waste. Prior to this night, I had always surrendered to their will within those five minutes. I knew the exact moment Jack realized that I would not surrender because he did a stupid thing and struck me across the face. I barely held my eyes closed, though I wondered why I could not bring myself to open them and smash him with my power. I was afraid that once I used my power against a person I couldn't stop.

"We don't have time for this, Jack," Knuckles hissed. "We need to retreat."

"No. Hold him up on his knees and hold him still. Keep behind him," Jack ordered. From my safe place, I listened and wondered what he thought he could do. I soon learned.

With Knuckles and Baggy Pants holding me still Jack came up behind me, wrapped one muscled arm around my neck and grabbed my forehead with his other hand. Strong fingers dug against my eyelids, pulling upwards until my eyes opened. Power shot forth and I saw the huge door strain under the force and then break open. I hadn't thought he could open my eyes. I don't think any of them had believed it was possible to force my eyes open.

The door was destroyed and he let me go. "Alright Knuckles. You take him back to the van. Here's the tape," My eyes had already closed. I was shaking with anger and horror. I had fought and held out long enough, but I had still lost. I did not fight as new tape was fastened around my eyes and then Knuckles slung my broken body over his shoulder and hoofed it out of there.

The van was back and I was thrown back into my cage and left to my tearless sobs. However, I soon heard a sound that would vindicate my battle. Sirens.

The van took off. Without Jack and Baggy Pants. For nearly ten minutes I had hope they would be caught within the plant we had broken in to, but even this hope was dashed when the van slowed and I heard Jack jump in, cursing. The sirens had been heard in enough time for them to escape.

I started to build more walls around my safe place, hoping that if I could cut off the outside world completely then I would also have won. I knew that once we were back at Jack's residence that I would be punished long and hard. For once, I had won the battle, but in doing so, I had lost the war.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

**JEAN**

**T** hrough a bit of pleading and conniving (on my part) I had been granted a whole week to visit with my mentor and my friends in his house. Once I had learned of the Professor's newest search I knew I had to be apart of it. Although Logan and Ororo had been rescued from terrible physical positions I had also been rescued, from a terrible mental trouble. You see when my powers first manifested I had as little control upon them as I do upon Ororo's winds. I could hear and move things with my mind and I could not stop doing it. Professor Xavier had been called in and he had helped me order my mind.

My conniving did not end with my parents. I had convinced Logan and Storm that I was going to help them with their end of the search for the missing mutant boy called Scott Summers. However, I confessed to myself that I truly hoped that I might be allowed to use Cerebro. My control over my powers was great and I felt that I could do what the Professor was struggling to do. Of course, Scott would push up walls against the Professor. But I could be different. I could be a soft whisper, a feminine hope.

I did not truly understand the danger the boy was in until Storm found our first clue to his whereabouts. Two nights ago, a chemical plant had an attempted break in. The police had arrived and the thieves had taken off. But the thieves, who were suspected of a rash of similar break-ins, had finally made a mistake. A security camera they had not disabled on the outside of the building.

This would not have been a clue, for the police merely gave the names and a former prison picture of the suspects, but the actual footage on the security cameras was leaked in one of the biggest news stories of the current year. For the cameras showed the boy, we were looking for, proving the professor was right about the mutant's plight. Scott Summers was being used by very bad men, who had already beaten him once and probably many times before.

The Professor had many contacts in numerous fields and offices around the whole world. It did not surprise me when he managed to get a hold of a good deal more evidence, though I am not allowed to see it. Storm tried to explain to me that what physical evidence they had was disturbing. I was annoyed that they believed I could not handle it. After all, I had learned some pretty ugly stuff when I couldn't keep my mind under control. I wasn't an impressionable eight year old but a mature fourteen year old. I was practically a woman!

Unfortunately, everyone else was at least fifteen years older than I was and this meant I was simply a baby in their eyes. Xavier thought of me as a grandkid and Logan was like that crotchety uncle you like but are always feel a bit afraid around him. Even Hank, who often forgot my age, refused to join my side of the discussion. Finally, they refused to discuss it further and Xavier actually threatened to send me home if I did not bend to his will.

I stopped fighting, but that doesn't mean I'm going to give up. If anyone can find the missing boy, it will be me.

My chance came late in the afternoon on my second day of my weeklong visit. Logan and Storm were sparring and the Professor was on a long phone call with the investigators seeking to find Scott Summers and his captors. The Professor was taking said phone call in the library for the simple reason that Logan's frustration had been taken out on the Professor's office phone. I slipped into the office and stared at the gleaming helmet of Cerebro.

The professor had explained how it worked fully to me, with the intention of allowing me to one day use it when he was positive of its abilities. I barred the office door in case my search did not yield immediate results. My mental conversations with the Professor had taught me what the signature of the young mutant felt like. I took a deep breath, calming myself, preparing my mind to expand over the world.

New York City was well within my psychic range, but like the professor, I had difficulty tracing a muted signature. Carefully I placed the helmet on my head. The cushioned probes touched my skull at strategic points, locking into my psionic mental energy. I turned the machine on to its lowest setting and let my mind expand. As foolish as I was being to try this for the first time alone I was not an idiot and for a few minutes I experimented with the enhanced powers. It was so easy to use my powers. I hardly felt any strain at all as I checked on my family, touching my father and mothers thoughts with a fond greeting. I felt their familiar love swell at my thoughts. Nearly all their trepidation and fear of my powers and me had faded over the past couple years as they welcomed the closeness my telepathy could bring.

I sent them psychic kisses and hugs and opened my mind wider, taking in thousands, even millions of signatures from the numerous people between my quarry and me. Quickly I shut out those who were not x active. Every person in the world, normal or mutant has a unique signature. It can best be described as an image of their mind. Some were sharp and clear, strong colors and scents filling my mind. Others were hazy and weak, blurred lines and mangled images. Mutants have a little extra tinge to their signature, a hint of fire around their image.

There are also hints to gender in the signature and I closed off all the mutant women. I narrowed my search to the city, closing off the surrounding towns and countryside. Then I rapidly looked at each signature left. Although there were hundreds, ranging from the faint shadows belonging to those who only carried the x-gene without gaining any special power and those whose powers were not currently active up to clear pictures of those whose powers were in use or who did not have the on/off that I had. Logan is one of those whose abilities are constantly working.

This went faster than if I had had to physically see each person. The mind is the most powerful computer there is and that is what I was using it like. Within a few moments, I caught the faint blurred signature of Scott Summers. It was by far a unique signature even in the broken pieces I was getting. His colors were strong blues and grays with hints of emerald.

Without Cerebro's enhancement I would have lost him. But with the assistance of the machine I tracked the signature to his mind. Here I was met with the resistance of which the professor spoke. Every mind is shaped like a room or building. Everyone has walls that they can lower or raise to welcome or turn away a telepath. Storm's are naturally strong because of the mental power used in wielding the weather. Logan's are naturally weak because of his fractured mind's continual search for something to organize him.

Scott Summer's mind held the thickest, most powerful walls I had ever felt. Even the Professor, after years of telepathy, could not bring up walls as firm as Scott's walls were. For the briefest moment, I wondered if I could even wile my way into his mind. My plan was simple and utterly unethical. Xavier would never sneak into Scott's mind; never break the privacy of the other without permission. His plan had consisted of knocking on those walls and calling out to Scott to open them up and let the professor in or let Scott come out. This plan had utterly failed and I wondered if Scott was even aware of the buzzing feeling that signaled the start of telepathic contact. He could be so deeply concealed behind his protective barriers that he could not be reached.

What was needed, if possible, was infiltration. Everyone had cracks in their walls where loose thoughts or particularly uncontrollable emotions slipped out. Everyone had one or two things that they could not keep within their vault. All I had to do was find Scott's thoughts that slipped through his walls. We called these runaway thoughts projections because often we heard them without any prior contact.

With Cerebro's help, my search was only moments long. I found the tender thought that ran through out Scott's protective walls. This was no crack, but a strengthening vein that would have protected Scott from even my attack if he had known I was playing around with his mind. However, he was unaware of me. I created my protective bubble. This was the first thing Xavier had taught me. It helped to keep me separate from the person whose mind I was entering. Telepathic contact is intensely intimate and there was a terrible condition the professor called enmeshment where two minds became so intertwined that they could not be separated without damage.

Scott's strengthening vein was his parents. He trusted that they had loved him, that they had done right by him and instilled in him the conscience that ruled his life. I entered that subconscious belief and floated through the dark, foreboding wall into the darkness beyond. I was inside!

I immediately realized that my position was precarious. Scotts mind was a mangled maze and if he became aware of my presence he could shut me down so fast it could hurt me. I also became conscious that I had violated Scott Summer's only haven. Yet I was so entranced by what I found in his mind that I brushed my brief guilt away and let myself float through out the forest like world in which I found myself.

He was a grand mystery. No one knew the depths of his mind, the glories to be found in his character. I could only sense a taste of them through my bubble and it made me hunger to search deeper. Once inside someone's mind there is usually very little mystery. A slight nudge could produce the desired information. A strong telepath could manipulate someone's mind by planting their own thoughts. (I often played practical jokes on Logan through my mind, giving him weird cravings or images to ponder. As long as I never crossed certain lines, he trusted me enough to let me have my fun.)

I remembered why I was in this jungle and I nudged Scott's mind with a question. To his mind it was merely a suddenly curiosity to his current location.

No picture formed to reveal this information to me. Instead, I heard him think. / _I'm in Jack's place./_ I tried to learn more by wondering where Jack's place was but this was only answered by a scoffing reminder that he was blind and had never known where he was being imprisoned. I might have to try a leap from Scott's mind into the mind of one of his captors to learn his location. First, I would look for clues in his mind.

Here I made a mistake. In anyone else, it would not have been a mistake because in anyone else I would have been far more powerful. But as it was I was only on the outer edges of Scott's haven, where he still had numerous protective traps up. I pushed too hard for him to imagine where he was and my bubbled shattered. Instantly I was not Jean, but a mingled mind that was Scott/Jean.

I Scott was suddenly aware of wonderful warmth in my mind. I welcomed it because I was shivering so very hard against the cold metal bars of my cage. The pain that I had been fighting for days diminished as I found a glimpse of a freedom I could not remember owning. I dismissed the half of my mind telling me I needed to know where I was. I did not know where I was and in my broken condition, I could not even hope to learn this vital information.

I Jean was suddenly terrified as I found myself one with Scott and examined my body to learn how badly I was hurt. I was flooded with the memories of the brutal punishments I had suffered because of my refusal to give in to Jack Winters. I had not known just how many ways there were to hurt a human body, or how cruel humiliation could be. I cried because it hurt so badly and I was so trapped. My panic rose and I briefly became physically aware of my own body in the Professor's office and could hear Logan demanding that the Professor disconnect me.

This brief moment of respite from Scott's pain and torment lasted hardly a few seconds and then suddenly our minds touched in the most powerful way ever. We were both stripped down to our core and we stood facing each other. I Jean saw Scott as battered, blood stained yet standing strong against a terrible attack. I Scott saw a girl made of an eternal flame and felt an unfamiliar burst of hope.

This intimate revealing made I Scott aware that there was _something_ in my mind. I Jean panicked as he slammed his natural defense against me and our brief joining was severed suddenly and shockingly, throwing me out of his mind and closing up his walls so tightly that I felt as if I was being cut in half.

I screamed as emptiness settled upon me and suddenly my mind retreated to its proper resting place. I found myself in Storm's comforting arms, sobbing my heart out. Logan and Xavier were nearby, faces twisting with concern. It would be hours before I could calm down enough after the broken connection and by then I was so exhausted I fell asleep in my bed.

I must have slept the rest of the afternoon and the whole night. I woke to find the Professor seated at my bed, fingering a book with a small frown between his eyes. He heard me shift and yawn and his book dropped out his hands as quickly as his recollection that he had said book. His wise old eyes looked reproachfully at me and I suddenly dropped my eyes, bitterly ashamed of what I had done. I was fully reaping the consequences of my actions. I felt torn in half still and the memories I had culled from Scott burned my thoughts.

/ _Jean?/_ the professors deep voice filled my head. I responded with a weak apology. / _What did you do?/_

I opened my memories up to him, knowing how greatly he would be disappointed in me. I had broken into a very sacred part of Scott without permission, committing a heinous crime against his person and then I had touched him in such away that I felt like part of me was still stuck to him, aware of his growing weakness and pain. In the professors eyes this was a grave sin and now I knew why. Before the entire tale lay before my mentor, I was crying my eyes out.

Xavier did not scold me. He saw everything and knew that I had learned a lesson. He soothed me and helped me regroup my scattered senses, pulling myself together as best I could. I felt a good deal better once he had done this, but I was not completely healed. There was a raw wound in my mind caused by Scott's panicky defenses and it was my own fault. He probably still did not realize that I was a person who had been in his mind. It had probably been a strange dream to him.

That afternoon Storm and I were working in her garden under a glorious soothing sun. This was Storm's attempt to give me strength to heal. Normally I disliked this work, but today it was soothing and a proper penance for my sins. Neither Storm nor Logan, who was normally as tenacious as a wolverine, had pressed me for information on what I had done and found, nor had they scolded me. When I saw Logan bounding towards us I wondered if he was coming to give me the talking to I deserved.

He was not.

"Jeanie! 'Ro! The Professor has found him!" He yelled to us before he was in the garden.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

**SCOTT**

**M** y punishment was dangerous. Jack was playing with my very life. Physically he had probably left me crippled for life, or so it felt. But his worst act was neglect. After a headache and a release of my optic energy, I required sunlight to recharge. The torture he had inflicted on me would also summon my considerable reserves of energy to try to heal my body. By keeping me locked in the basement, he could kill me.

I think Jack had finally realized that I would never give in to him. Instead of chaining me to the cot, he had the dog kennel dragged to the basement and locked me in, despite my numerous wounds. He kept my hands behind my back and what little water I was given had to be lapped up like a dog. They had yet to give me any food, but since my bruised stomach could barely handle the water, I did not worry about this secondary neglect.

I had a curious dream with a wonderful girl made out of fire promising me everything would be ok. It was so strange to be faced with this vision of hope that I had closed my mind against it. The fire-dancing girl wanted me to live, but my hope was in the peace of death. Perhaps this new delusion would return but for now I lay in my cramped cage and prayed for mercy.

Since the idea was growing in my mind that I was either going crazy or had already lost my marbles it was no surprise that angry voices and gunshots were ignored by my fevered thoughts. It took much more than that to pull me out of my semi-conscious attempts to rest. Much more being a suddenly collapse of the door that led into the basement and the sound of unfamiliar treads entering the room.

Someone gasped in shock and the loud squawk of a communicator only a couple feet away from me jolted me fully into the hideous here and now. A male voice requested someone to join them. I wished I was smaller and was free to conceal myself from this new threat. As I was neither I played possum and refused to show the strangers that I was conscious of their presence.

I heard more people join them, carrying large bags that they dropped next to my cage. A woman swore. "What is his name?"

"Scott Summers. He's fourteen years old. Don't open his eyes. He apparently has no control over his power," Someone replied.

"Alright. Get that lock off the door," The woman ordered. I heard the sounds of the lock being broken off my kennel and I tensed. There must have been light in the room because they saw my flinch. "Scott, are you awake?"

A lump made its way up into my throat. They knew I was awake. The woman asked me several times if I could move, or if I could tell her where I was hurt. I ignored her and wished I could really be unconscious.

"Is there a way to take the cage apart? I don't know if we should move him before we stabilize his neck," The woman said. The men around her moved to obey her and I felt them carefully taking the cage apart. They jostle my body and against my will, I uttered a groan as my body reminded me that it was broken. "Be careful!" The woman cried.

Hands were now touching me. Somebody was sliding a brace around my neck. Another person was working on getting my swollen hands out of the handcuffs. Another person had covered my bruised legs with a blanket. My right arm and shoulder were immobilized. Suddenly something covered my mouth and nose and I felt fresh oxygen making its way into my weary lungs.

They slid a firm board under my body and lifted me off the floor of the dismantled cage. I was shifted from the board onto a stretcher and a second blanket was laid over me, followed by straps to keep my limp body from falling off the bed. I had grasped that this was not another gang come to steal Jack's weapon, but that I was actually being cared for by paramedics and that there were police around me. Had I been able to cry, I would have had tears pouring down my face. My eyes, under the duct tape, were too swollen to release tears. Even had I summoned some tears, they would have burned away in the power of my optic beam.

They were telling me what they were doing as they began to add an IV and monitors to my body. They soon realized that my heart was racing with mingled fear and that unfamiliar elation of hope. I did not doubt that Jack and the others would pay for some of their crimes. This sweet thought made me heady with delight and I no longer cared what they did with me.

I was being moved upwards, out of the basement that had been my solitary confinement for so long. Suddenly I was being carried outside and warm sunlight caressed my face and naked chest and arms. The paramedics did not know how important sunlight was too me and rushed the stretcher into an ambulance, but even the dimmed daylight still touched my body and granted its energy to me.

I relaxed. I did not believe I would be hurt for the moment and the sunlight had relieved the ever-present headache. For the first time since my stand against Jack, I fell to sleep.

**LOGAN**

**S** torm and I watched as Jack Winters and several others were loaded into police cars and were driven away. However, our elation at catching this evil man was soon tempered by overhearing frantic demands for a paramedic. Through the numerous scents of testosterone, metallic bullets, sweat of fear and exertion and strong perfumes and antiseptics, I caught the scent of blood and bile. 'Ro and I were both immensely relieved that Jeanie had been convinced to stay with Chuck and his FBI contact who had managed to scraped up enough evidence from our information that they were able to make a raid on the residence of Jack Winters girlfriend.

When the paramedics came out of the building, Storm and I got our first look at Scott Summers. There wasn't much to him now. His scrawny body was strapped into the stretcher and the EMTs were working over him even as they rushed him towards the ambulance. The strongest scent of blood came from him. Storm was furious by the sight of duct tape wrapped around his head in numerous layers, but I reasoned that it was best to leave that protection on for now. Princess seethed inside but did not make demands that his eyes be released.

As the ambulance drove away, Storm and I got into our car (well it belonged to Chuck if you were technical) and followed it towards the hospital it had been directed to. I was driving while Storm called the Professor.

Jeanie's idiotic attempt at using Cerebro had ended up paying dividends. Although she had not gained the most vital of information from the kid she had gathered enough material on Jack Winters out of Scott's mind that Chuck had been able to narrow him down and learn where he was as well as determining he kept Scott a prisoner near him at all times. From there we had managed to convince one Agent Barton of our information and within forty-eight hours from the time our red head telepath had risked her sanity with Cerebro we were now experiencing the fruits of our labor.

We arrived at the hospital in time to see Summers rushed through the door and into the mysterious back rooms that I, personally, had never experienced. We encased ourselves in a waiting room and soon Chuck and Jeanie joined us with the grave news that it would be hours before the kid was placed into a private room and he might end up in surgery before the day ended. Our search had last long enough that we chose to wait in hopes to see him actually safe and sound. I guess I ain't as patient as the rest. Within two hours, I had departed to hospital to prowl the streets in hopes that my strangely concerned heart would relax. I knew how important it was to Chuck and now especially to Jeanie that they had saved the kid in time to help and I could only assume that my grudging affection for them was granting me this newfound pity.

**JEAN**

**H** ours turned into half a day and it was midnight before we heard that Scott had been moved into a private room. We were not allowed to see him, since we had no actual claim to him. (As of yet.) The Professor did not argue the point, but only gained the knowledge that someone had been assigned to watch the hospital corridors because not all of the gang members had been arrested. After receiving this reassurance, we retired to a luxurious hotel where Storm and I shared the most glorious bed I have ever slept in.

We all slept late and Logan rounded up a greasy and delicious breakfast for us to share before we went to the hospital. A wonderful, gray haired old woman met us with Agent Barton and I think I nearly cried with joy when she turned out to be the new social worker assigned to Scott, because she projected her wonderful attitude so well. Once the professor had explained that he helped those like Scott and that we had been the ones to discover the kidnapped boy, we were allowed to go into the quiet room where they had situated Scott.

We found him sound asleep. He was long and skinny, the bones in his face jutting out sharply through pale or bruised skin. The duct tape Storm had railed about to us had been removed and replaced with soft bandages. It was a crushing disappointment to me because I had anticipated getting to talk to him and filling his life with even more good news that the Professor would help him. The professor and Logan seemed to be assured at once that we had succeeded.

Storm also had a peaceful look come over her face that annoyed me. Did they not see how thin and hurt he was? I wondered what color his eyes were and realized that I would probably never know. His hair was a deep blond, dark enough to be called brown. He was very, very white after months of being locked in a dark basement.

"When will he wake up?" I demanded. Ms. Malcolm, the social worker, gave me a smile. The young nurse who was standing in the door, ready to shoe us out if we disturbed him raised her eyebrows.

"He's had a very rough night," She informed us. "In fact he did not seem to be able to sleep until this morning. We took your advice, Professor Xavier, as you can see. Once the sun was up and we opened the blinds he seemed to relax."

"I believe he turns solar energy into the power in his eyes and that the same power runs through out his body, granting him increased stamina and strength. The sun is probably as good as an endorphin," Professor X explained.

I scowled as my anticipation was squashed down. It would still be another day probably before we could share with him the Professor's offer of help and safety. Having experienced some of his suffering with him I could hardly wait to feel his hope grow.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

**SCOTT**

**I** had no desire to run away this time. I did not have the strength and I overhead the nurse talking to the police officer outside my door. Clearly, I was far too weak to be moved from the hospital to a juvie hall. However, someone had worked out that I needed the sun and every time I woke, I found my window uncovered and daylight streaming in to touch my eager skin. The headache had long ago faded and between the nourishment given me through my IV and the relaxing pain meds I was given to help me rest, I was almost pain free for the first time that I could remember.

My first awakenings were brief moments of the nurses changing my bandages or cleaning up the bile that still came up. Nevertheless, after a second long sleep, my stomach seemed to settle down and I was able to hold down first water and then a little Jell-O. The nurse tried to get me to guess what flavor it was, which strange friendliness stunned me and I only stammered out my inability to guess. After this small meal, I dozed for a couple more hours until I heard several people enter the room.

One of them turned out to be the nurse, who asked if I was awake. I moved my hands to signal that I was conscious. She raised the bed so that I was sitting up and offered me another Jell-O. I was too aware of the other people in the room and when she saw that I was too tense to eat she set it aside. "Scott, this is Agent Barton of the FBI and Professor Xavier," She said.

One of the men came forward. "Hello Scott. I'm Agent Barton. I need to ask you a few questions. I brought my friend Professor Xavier along because he is very knowledgeable about your unique needs."

I cocked my head to indicate that I was listening. I wished I could be left alone, but no doubt they needed to take down my statement. With my slight assent, Agent Barton pulled up a chair. I heard a wheelchair move and wondered who was in a wheelchair. Had another patient entered out of curiosity? My attention was clearly snagged by this curious information.

"Scott, I am Professor Charles Xavier. The sound you hear is my wheelchair. I am a paraplegic and do not have the use of my lower body," The second man explained. I was surprised but I held my curiosity inside. The man was probably here to help me deal with my disability. I was suddenly thankful again that I had not turned out to be crippled by Jack's punishment.

"Scott, do you know how long you were held in that basement?" Agent Barton asked gently. Even so, his words sent a shiver through me. I was only one, maybe two days removed from said basement yet already I could not comprehend going back. I shook my head.

"Did Jack Winters kidnap you because of your power? He wanted to use it for his own gain?" The agent continued.

"Yes," I whispered. The lump in my throat grew.

"Can you tell me in your own words exactly what he did?" The agent asked.

I froze. How could I put the horrors that Jack had done to me into words? My distress was visible. "You do not have to tell us if you do not think you can."

"He hurt me. He would hurt me until I had to open my eyes because I didn't want to get hurt anymore," I told them. "He made me hurt some people or destroy doors. I can't remember how many people or how many places we broke into."

"Is that the only time he hurt you?" Agent Barton asked.

Suddenly I couldn't talk anymore. I don't know how much they already knew but I was too ashamed of my weakness, of my humiliation to tell them anymore. The monitor started beeping loudly and I couldn't breathe. The agent swore and called for the nurse. She and several others came running in, placing an oxygen mask over my mouth and nose, encouraging me to breathe deep and slow.

The Agent and the Professor were ushered out of my room and the questioning would wait.

To my surprise, Professor Xavier came back alone that evening along with Ms. Malcolm, who was apparently my new caseworker. They brought with them a larger meal of white toast and more Jell-O. Ms. Malcolm encouraged me to guess what flavor by tasting it. I made an effort, but honestly all Jell-O tastes similar. They watched me eat, taking turns describing the hospital room. I must have been in a nice hospital because what they described sounded nice, with calming colors and good doors blocking out the noise of the hospital hallways.

"Scott, Professor Xavier helps people with an active x-gene learn about their powers. He has helped numerous people live normal lives," Ms. Malcolm told me.

"I enjoy helping people gain their lives back," Xavier said quietly. I couldn't detect any insincerity in him.

"That's nice." I commented dully.

"I would like to help you out," Xavier commented.

"How?" I asked suspiciously.

"I am not sure yet. You have a unique physiology. It would take some time and effort to understand your power."

"You want to study me?" I felt sick. That idea was worse than going to juvenile hall and ending up in solitary.

"I want to help you. Part of that would include studying you, but not until you are recovered enough, and nothing that would be done without your agreement."

I snorted. "You'd give me that much time? What about jail?"

"What do you mean, Scott?" Ms. Malcolm asked.

"I was going to jail when Jack kidnapped me and I helped him break into a lot of places and I know he stole a lot of stuff," I pointed out.

"Honey, you aren't going to jail. You were being taken to a halfway house when you were kidnapped. We were going to try to find a better solution than Juvenile Hall for you. As for what Jack made you do, you will not be charged with any crimes for that. No one can hold you accountable. You are only a child who was tortured for trying to do the right thing," Ms. Malcolm explained.

"I'm not going to jail?" I was shocked. "What about all the people I hurt?"

"Scott, you were being used. You did not want do those things. I know it has to be very hard for you. You are so very careful about keeping your eyes closed and that bandage tight. No one is going to punish you for what Jack did to you. He will pay the price for his crimes against all those people and against you."

I drew my knees up, ignoring the protests of my healing muscles. Could they be serious? Yet where would I go? No one would take me in with my dangerous power. Accidents happen and I was probably a real 'special' case now.

"Did you really think that you would get in trouble for being kidnapped and hurt?" Her voice was low with grief. I didn't know how to accept pity. I didn't know how to trust these people.

"Where will I go then?" I demanded gruffly, ignoring her question.

"I would like to offer you a place to live," Xavier spoke up. "I live in a vast house with some other people that I have helped and am still helping. I have plenty of room and there is plenty of space around my house. You will be able to recover and grow strong there. I have friends who will help me find a solution to your uncontrolled power."

I did not answer. Was going to another lab better than going to juvie? I wasn't sure if that wasn't really just another flip out of the pan and into the fire.

I woke up the next morning feeling much stronger. As I had kept the small meal down yesterday, I was offered a more solid meal that morning. I was voraciously hungry for the first time since my rescue. While I was licking the last bits of oatmeal off my spoon, Professor Xavier entered, alone. Agent Barton had yet to return and try to get my statement.

"How are you feeling this morning?" He asked.

"Better," I answered, carefully setting the spoon the bowl and lowering my hands from the tray in fear that I would knock stuff over in my blindness. Xavier moved the tray away.

"Would you be alright if I brought a couple of my friends in? They helped me look for you and have wanted to meet you since you were first brought here. They were allowed to look in on you once, but it was decided that we would not overwhelm you."

I shrugged, not sure what liberties I could take with the professor. I considered the sunlight pouring in and waited for Xavier to make the choice for me. By my own desires, I would not have met any more people, but I knew this could never be a practical way to live. My fears could not be allowed to rule my life. I had no hope that I was a _person_ of interest to Xavier and his friends, knowing that however they had spun their tale they merely wanted me for the secrets my body held.

"I think you would like to meet them, Jean especially. She is just a little younger than you," Xavier commented.

I raised my head in surprise, intrigued by the knowledge of another child in Xavier's care. Was she also a mutant? Was she his daughter? Granddaughter? Would I scare her? My curiosity must have been evident in my face for Xavier called his friends into the room.

Three more people entered. I quickly separated them by their sounds. One was a heavy, yet stealthy step. Another sounded as light as air, and I could hear a suede skirt swishing about a woman's ankles as she drew near my bed. The final set of footsteps was a girlish skip of excitement. I tested my safe haven in my mind, ready to retreat if these people revealed their true colors to me.

"Scott this is Logan," Xavier introduced. "His hand is about eight inches above you." I tensed briefly before I realized that I was meant to shake the hand. Cautiously I lifted my own hand and touched the proffered symbol. We merely tightened our grips, and I suddenly realized that this simple act of trust would allow me to learn a good deal about the people I was facing. I had determined the Xavier was an older man by his voice and his varied knowledge. Logan was a strong man with hairy, warm hands.

"This is Ororo Monroe," Xavier continued. A slender woman's hands replaced Logan's. It was strong, but gentle and the scent of a garden wafted from the gracious female.

"And last, but certainly not least, this is Jean Grey," A smaller, even slenderer hand slid into my calloused palm. As her fingertips brushed my hand, I flinched as I felt actual sparks in my mind. It wasn't the awe inspiring ones of admiration at a woman's beauty. No, this was an indication of power. She was like a living flame, like the dream I had had in my dark cage.

I pulled my hand away quickly, a little scared of her and unsettled by the idea that I could have dreamt of this girl before I had met her. I wrapped my arms around my skinny body and for the first time became aware that I probably looked horrible to the women. No one needed to tell me that I was filthy, nor that I was bone thin. Nor did I need sight to know they were looking at me with pity because of my unkempt state.

"I'm so excited that you are going to live with the professor. I've wanted him to have someone my age around since I first started visiting him so he could help me," Jean informed me. I mulled over her words, liking her musical voice. My blindness had sharpened my other senses and voices were nearly as good as faces. I only knew Jean had spoken because she was the only one supposed to be fourteen.

"Jean, Scott has not yet decided if he is going to come to live with me," The Professor cautioned.

I was surprised by his words. "I have a choice?" I said.

At that same moment Jean exclaimed, "why wouldn't you choose to live in a safe place after all you've been through?"

I stiffened, angered that she thought she could understand me. Did she really think that I was going to trust them because of promises they made? I had heard silky promises before, from Essex and from Jack and the better a promise was the more likely it was a lie.

"Jean!" Ms. Monroe cried.

Jean ran out of the room. Ms. Munroe followed her quickly.

"I'm sorry Scott. Jean is very eager for you to recover. I do not expect you to trust me. If you wish you may refuse to come to me," The Professor said gravely.

"They'd just send me to juvenile hall again, wouldn't they?" I pointed out bitterly. The old man's offer that I could refuse was an illusion of free will. I knew the horrors of prison and at least until I was released from the hospital I could hope that Xavier's place would finally offer me safety.

"Ms. Malcolm will do everything she can to help you find the right place," Xavier offered in the same foreboding tone. We both knew it would take a crazy person to take in someone like me, with all my physical problems. A crazy person or someone like those who had tried to master me. Surely, I was better off in the streets. "We will make no decision yet Scott. You will probably not be released for days. They want to be sure your stomach fully recovers.

"I think I had better go after Jean. She is sorry, Scott. She spoke without thinking. Do not be angry with her," The Professor left the room.

Logan did not. He had not spoken or moved since our introduction. I turned my face towards him to prove that I was aware of his presence. He shifted on his feet and cleared his throat. "Kid, I know you got to be scared. I do know something of what you've gone through. I was experimented on too. Chuck, Xavier, is a good man," He told me gruffly. "Give us a chance."


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

**JEAN**

**I** had to return home before Scott was released from the hospital. My outburst had created an instant awkwardness between us. He hardly ever spoke in my presence, though I tried hard to make amends by talking to him. Scott rarely projected thoughts, but the single thought both the Professor and I heard more than once was a deep-set mistrust. He did say good-bye to me in the friendliest voice I had heard from him yet. (Which still made Logan's gruffness seem outgoing)

It was over two weeks from the time Scott was rescued out of the basement before he was released after finally passing the hospital's battery of tests. Logan came home with Hank and they requested my help to set up Scott's room. I was in my element in preparing a nice, south facing room for the newest arrival of our growing community. Hank made the proper medical preparations while I did all the rest and Logan helped by removing the more dangerous objects in the halls so that Scott would not walk into them.

Logan thought I was silly to intentionally choose a room that was painted in a sky blue with orange curtains, since Scott could not see. I informed him that Hank and the Professor would find a way for Scott to use his eyes as they were meant to be used. He smirked in the way that told me he loved me because of my fiery nature.

Storm drove the professor and Scott home. Hank remained at the mansion so that he could meet Scott, although the professor was adamant that they would not do any tests on the boy until he was more at his ease among us. Logan was eating and Hank was reading while I paced one of the parlors that overlooked the long driveway. When I saw the black luxury car pull into through the gates, I summoned both of them with an excited mental burst.

I was outside and on the impressive entrance stairs before the car had pulled up to the stairs. Logan and Hank emerged as Storm parked the car. Hank hurried down the stairs to help the Professor get out, while Storm opened the opposite door and carefully guided our new arrival onto the paved driveway. He stretched to his full height. I was surprised how tall he was after seeing him huddled like a little boy in his hospital bed. Already he equaled Storm in height while he had an inch or two on the short, stocky Logan.

"Scott, you have one more person to meet. This is Hank McCoy. He was a student under Professor Xavier and is currently in medical school," Storm said as she placed Scott's hand on her arm and led him around the car toward Hank. Hank held out his hand and Storm guided Scott to him.

As he had done with Logan, Storm, and I, Scott gripped the hand, his head cocked at an interested angle. I had not understood this until Storm suggested that he was using the greeting in the same way I would study someone's face to learn about them. While Hank welcomed Scott in his grandiloquent way, I studied the newest arrival. Despite his fortnight in the hospital, he still looked painfully thin. The half of his face that I could see was flushed as if he was ill or in pain, while the rest of his skin was still astonishingly white. Once he had released Hank's grip Storm had taken his hand upon her arm again and before the longwinded speech of welcome was complete, we were all aware that he was leaning on her for assistance.

"Hank, we were advised to have Scott on bed rest for a few more days," Xavier interrupted. "Perhaps you can complete your welcome this evening after he rests."

"Of course, professor," Hank agreed.

It took every ounce of my will to keep from demanding that I be allowed to show Scott to his room. My restraint was rewarded. Storm did not which room had been prepared. "Jean, will you bring in the bags in the back of the car and show us where Scott's room is?" She asked, her teeth flashing white against her gorgeous chocolate colored face as she saw my eyes light up with delight at this request.

I fetched several bags of new clothing that the travelers had stopped to get for Scott, who did not own anything in the world. Hank and Logan followed the professor towards his study, probably to discuss what measures would be needed to assure the boy's recovery and safety while I led the slow way to the second floor where my beautifully prepared room awaited the invalid. Storm named each room as we passed through the foyer, up the stairs and down the long hall of bedrooms.

"The professor's rooms are on the lower floor near his study and I sleep in the opposite wing. Logan is in this same wing as you, but he is near the stairs where he can slip out without disturbing anyone," Storm explained. I skipped ahead to open the door of his room.

"I have a room near Storm, for when I sleep over," I told him.

His mouth tightened into a flat line.

"This is your room," Storm said, leading him into the bedroom. We stopped just over the threshold to allow him to examine the room through the senses he could use. I tried to imagine what he might hear, smell, and feel. My eyes closed.

The room smelled fresh. Everything had been scrubbed to give it this clean, healthy scent. It was filled with warm sunlight from the wide-open window that also let in a gentle summer breeze. To me the room felt wide and open, but I knew it was a large room. Could Scott's sharpened senses feel the freedom the bedroom was offering him?

He let Storm's arm go and shuffled forward until he found the end of the bed. Storm caught my arm and would not let me leap forward to show him around the room. "Scott, Jean and I are going to put your clothes in the dresser. When we are done, perhaps you would like to lie down," She suggested. He nodded and continued his slow trek around the room, learning the locations of the desk and chair, dresser and closet on his own. While we folded his few new clothes and put them away he lingered by the window, welcoming the sunlight that bathed him.

I was nearly positive that Storm was affecting the weather to bring him the sunlight he needed. Last night had been wet and rainy. He tested the bandage around his eyes carefully to be sure it was tight. I dropped a pile of socks into the bottom drawer and our work was done. We had left a single outfit for Scott to change into before he retired to his bed.

"There are clean clothes laid out for you on the bed," Storm said. "Why don't you get changed while I make you a hot cup of tea and a snack?"

Scott nodded, still by the window. Storm took hold of my arm and led me out with her. "Come along Jean," She instructed. I think she did that so Scott could know that I was leaving as well and he would be alone.

**SCOTT**

**B** efore I changed, I walked around the room again. It surprised me how large and open it was. When I found the bed, I discovered a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt had been left for me to change into. Once I had quickly slipped into the pants I sat down on the bed to finish changing my shirt. The bed accepted my weight with a gentle caress, and suddenly I was tired. Before I examined this luxurious place of rest, I stood up and gathered my dirty clothes. There was a wicker laundry basket by the dresser and I dropped my clothes into its empty mouth.

As I returned to the bedside and further examined this wondrous piece of furniture a firm knock sounded at me door. "Are you dressed?" Ms. Munroe called.

"Yes ma'am," I replied as my fingers caught the edge of the bedspread and discovered clean sheets and several soft blankets. She opened the door. I could hear dishes jingling on the tray she had in hand. I turned towards her, uncertain what I was supposed to do.

"Did you want me to help you turn the bed down?" She asked kindly.

"Can you show me how to do it?" I asked, determined to take any freedom they might allow me, even if was as small as making up my own bed. Those words startled me. I had not had a proper bed to call my own for years.

She took one end of the bedspread and I took the other. Under her quiet, concise directions, I discovered how to fold back the top covering, which was apparently decorative. I easily pulled the covers up and slipped onto the welcoming mattress. It was one of those special beds that molded itself to your body. My limbs were entrapped by this soothing inveiglement.

"Before you go to sleep you should eat a little something," Ms. Munroe said in her rich voice. I started to slide out of bed but she stopped me. "You may eat where you are. I brought you chamomile tea and a couple of cookies that Jean baked as a welcome home treat."

"I may spill," I pointed out.

"You are very careful, Scott and if you do spill we have plenty of clean linen. Everything will be perfectly alright," She replied, slipping the mug into my hand and laying a little plate on my lap. I sipped the warm, bitter brew gratefully prior to hesitantly taking one of the cookies. I wasn't sure how good a teenage girl could bake. The only girls I had known where the ones on the streets and they weren't the kind you find in a kitchen. The girls I had tried to take care of when I lived in the alleys had all been much younger than me. I was suddenly self-conscious. Who knew what rules of adolescent femininity I had already broken in my ignorance?

The cookie was chocolate chip and it was good. Whether Jean Grey was a good specimen of her peers I did not know, but I had now learned that she could bake cookies very well. I finished both cookies and drank half the tea before I became too weary to hold the mug. Ms. Munroe took the mug and told me to lie down. She said that someone would check on me in a couple hours and that I was to sleep.

Despite my unfamiliar surroundings, I obeyed her kindly spoken command and I drifted away to a deep dreamless sleep. For the first time since I had been condemned to a life of blindness, I felt that I might have landed in a safe place.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

**LOGAN**

**T** he kid was sound asleep when I was sent upstairs to see if he wanted some dinner. He did not stir, despite the fact that I opened the door and called his name. Storm and Chuck were glad to hear that he was sleeping so well. We had all doubted that he would feel safe among us. Although his exhaustion had won out it did feel like a victory, since he had been a jumpy as a flea in the hospital, waking up with any sound and sleeping poorly.

Jeanie had gone home by this time, but that evening she called to demand a report on the patient. Storm managed to give her enough details to satisfy her and once we had rid ourselves of our junior partner, Chuck summoned us to his study to discuss Scott's care. I dropped into a chair and scowled at the clock as Hank perched himself in a window. Storm assisted the professor with a couple charts and then floated to a seat near me.

"Well I think we have undertaken a challenge unlike any we have faced," Xavier said. "We have a good prognosis for Scott's health, but we have to gain his trust before we can help him with his more unique mutation needs. To even begin to understand the energy conversion that causes his optic beams Hank and I will need detailed scans, tests and more. Yet we cannot do this to him in his current state of mistrust. He needs a safe haven even more than he needs to learn control of his power."

"Professor, it would appear he has no choice in his lack of control. The only thing that seems to stop this power is his own body. I wonder if there is a material out there that could dispel or reflect his power," Hank said.

"We will worry about his inability to control his power at a later time. He is remarkably careful, afraid to hurt anyone or anything. I have no fears on our account. My concern now is that we get him to a healthy state. His injuries are healing quicker than a normal person's would. I think that his unique physique may lend him stamina and enhanced healing as well."

"So he's like a messed up version of me?" I suggested.

"Your body takes psionic energy in to heal itself. Scott's psionic signature indicates he produces energy, not uses it. However, it lends its healing to him as it passes through his body. Now, how shall we gain this child's trust?"

Storm was the first to speak after this open question. "We must continue as we have begun and seek only his health. Perhaps Jean could help a good deal too. She is his only peer and though they got off on the wrong foot, her presence must surely reassure him."

"If she doesn't blow him up," I pointed out, recalling a few fiery flashes from our favorite red head. Storm glared at me and I graced her with a wide grin.

"You may understand Scott the best Logan," Xavier promptly removed my good mood. "Do you have any suggestions?"

I frowned at him, but gave the matter a few seconds consideration. "Well, don't go pushing him to help with your experiments for sure. I can't remember most of what was done to me and though I believe you'd never do anything he don't know you like I do."

"Scott's own memory is pretty fragile," Xavier reported quietly. "He lost his family in a plane crash and was in a coma for several months. It appears he had some brain damage from the head injuries he sustained, including long-term memory loss. He was in a second coma for a few days after being found in the experimental lab under the biogenetic scientist Nathaniel Essex. They were never able to get Scott to fully tell them what happened to him in the lab."

"He was eventually able to give Agent Barton a clear statement," Storm said softly. "So he can keep new memories."

"Yes," Xavier agreed.

"Just let him not trust us," I suddenly spoke up. "Telling him we're the good guys ain't as helpful as showing him."

"Thank you Logan. You are correct," Chuck said and then an uncomfortable look came over his face. "I think I should explain to him what mine and Jean's powers are however. To have him find out later could destroy any trust we do manage to build. He prizes his privacy above most other things."

**SCOTT**

I had not realized how refreshing it is to wake up in a good bed. Even better was the fact that I soon had determined I was still alone in the room. No one had snuck in while slumber had denied me the use of the senses I utilized. Sunlight flooded my room and I knew it was morning. There is a difference in the way the light feels on my skin. I don't know if this was because of my mutation or if my senses were just extra sharp from my years of blindness.

I felt very good after my long sleep. In the hospital I had slept uneasily, woken by the necessary noises. The blankets were not so heavy, not was the mattress pinning my body in its kind embrace. I shoved the blankets off my legs and slid out of bed to test my newfound strength. When I stood, I was surprised that my legs trembled beneath me.

At that moment, someone knocked at my door. I lifted my head though of course I could not see. "Scott? It is Professor Xavier. May I come in?" The man had a rich voice. A smooth voice. I sat down on the bed.

"Yes sir," I called back.

My door slowly swung open, brushing the carpet with a soft sh-sh that only my experienced ears would hear. I heard the motor on Xavier's wheelchair whir and the wheels turning on the soft rug that I was resting my feet on. "Are you alright? Should you be out of bed, son?" He asked. I tensed as he drew to within a few feet of me. "Scott, perhaps you should not try to get up yet. Yesterday was a long day and you must give yourself time to recover."

"I am alright," I said quietly. He did not immediately reply, nor did he move so I could only imagine him staring at me, but I wasn't sure how he was watching me. Was it anger? Was it pity? Was it calculating interest in what information my body seemed to hold? He held his emotions in check very well. Most people betray themselves with little sounds or motions.

"Scott, I understand your fear. You have been promised many things that never happened. I cannot force you to trust me. My only request is that you give us a chance," He finally spoke in his strong, convincing way. It was my turn to hold my emotions in check.

Essex. Jack. Both had had strong voices. Both had offered me hope. Both had shattered that hope.

"Yes, sir," I agreed after I had held my breath for the count of ten while I forced the anger and fear down.

"Scott, all of us here have our own powers. They are gifts for us to use, to help each other, to help improve the world," Xavier's voice changed. He sounded now like one of my teachers from school, back when I was just a damaged kid who went to school and not a freak of nature. I did not offer any observation when he paused. There was nothing I had to say. I had already known that at least the gruff man known as Logan was a mutant. Perhaps I did want to know if Jean, who was near my age, also had powers.

"Logan has greatly heightened senses and a healing ability that makes it impossible for us to determine his age. He heals within moments of getting hurt," The old man continued in his instructor's voice. "Ororo, whom we have nicknamed Storm, can use the weather. She can create clouds and wind, or send them away to bring out the sun. She has kept the sky around us clear so that you might have the sun." I cocked my head, curious why the woman who smelled like a garden would do this for me.

"Hank has the agility and dexterity not unlike some animals. He is able to use his feet nearly as much as his hands. He is also a genius, though I do not think that is part of his mutation. He is finishing up medical school while teaching."

This lesson was interesting. I wondered if all the people the professor helped were mutants. Was he a mutant?

"Jean has two powers. She is telekinetic and can use her mind to move things, putting it in layman's terms," The professor smiled. I could hear it in his voice. Yet despite his amusement at his words, he hesitated to continue. The knot in my stomach had been relaxing as he spoke. I was still on alert, listening for any sound that someone else was in the room or that he was moving towards me, yet for a few moments I had felt safe. Now the knot tightened and my still healing stomach complained.

The hesitation continued and I knew what he had to tell me was bad news. My growing concern must have been evident, for he sighed. "Scott, I know how greatly you value your privacy and that the only place you have been found that privacy was in your mind. Like me, Jean is a telepath. We have the ability to touch other people's minds."

His words made my shoulders drop. My mind was my only place of safety. Now it too could be violated. Was there no end to the damage that could be done against me?

**LOGAN**

**X** avier came downstairs with concern written on every line of his face. His talk with the young mutant had not gone well. Storm stiffened slightly. "He did not take the news well?" She asked.

"He never spoke to me after I told him. He pulled his shields up so tightly that I couldn't even feel his projections anymore. I fear I may have done more harm than good," He explained. "Perhaps I should have waited a few more days."

"He'll get over it," I announced bluntly. "He has no where else to go Chuck. He'll probably weigh every action against his own beliefs for a long time to be sure you aren't making him do something. Perhaps someone should explain to him how to use his shields."

"He uses them much better than you already," Chuck answered dryly. I shrugged, fully aware that my occasional nightmares and flashbacks were not contained and that I woke him up with the force of my emotions. He had offered to see if he could not block the nightmares, but when I was concerned this might also keep memories from resurfacing he merely asked me to keep my shields up when I could. I also moved to a different wing of the house to be farther away from him.

"Perhaps I should explain to him what he is doing," Storm suggested. "He has shown little fear in my presence."

"You remind him of a long forgotten voice that comforts him," Xavier explained. He looked kindly at her. "We may need to use that. I think that he had some kindness before the experiments and Jack Winters."

"What is he gonna do in bed all day?" I asked, as I considered this problem of his entertainment. He couldn't do anything that a normal person could do while resting and recuperating. Everything needed eyes. Storm pointed to a box she had been preparing that morning.

"I found a couple audio books. They are old fantasy stories. I was planning on bringing them up to him when we brought him his breakfast and medication," She explained.

"A splendid idea!" Xavier brightened. He looked at the audio books she had chosen and smiled. "Lord of the Rings. These are perfect to distract him."

"Since we know he is awake and probably too disturbed to go back to sleep I should bring him his breakfast now. Logan, can you carry that box up for me so I can carry the tray?" Storm requested in her commanding voice. I grinned and picked the box up while she floated to the kitchen.

When we reached the boy's door, I knocked. "Scott, Storm and I are coming in, ok?" I called. Storm had made it clear on the way up that I was never to open his door without letting him know I was entering. We did not receive a reply this time. I opened the door and we entered.

The kid was not in bed, but seated in front of the window. He had opened the window to allow in the breeze and his face was tilted up to let the sun touch as much skin as possible. He had also removed his shirt for the same reason, revealing the fading bruises and burns that had been his punishment for refusing to open his eyes. Tender Storm flinched at the sight, but I was glad to see how well the wounds were healing. The boy had been a terrible mess when rescued from the basement.

"We brought you breakfast," Storm said softly. He did not acknowledge us. His shoulders were up high, tense with fear that filled the room with its sweaty scent. Yet I did not think he was in panic mode. The stronger the scent the more afraid someone is and I had had plenty of reason to smell fear. The kid's heart was probably beating hard, but he wasn't letting the fear rule him. He had determined to fight if possible. "Scott, are you alright?"

"No. I want to go away," He finally spoke through gritted teeth. "There is something worse than living on the streets or being a prisoner and it would be too easy to it to happen here."

"The professor ain't gonna mess with your mind. He can barely catch your projections," I said in exasperation. This caught his attention and his scent shifted slightly. He turned his face toward us and we could see that the bandage over his eyes was wet. Storm set the tray down and knelt down by him.

"It's going to be alright, child," She cooed, softly resting her graceful hand on his bare shoulder, no longer revolted by his exposed injuries. He flinched under the touch, so unused to any human contact that was not meant to hurt or humiliate him that he could even believe she wanted to harm him. When her touch remained soft and kind, his thin shoulders shook and though a wave of fear sharpened his scent he let her wrap her arms gently about him. I stood a few feet away, marveling at the ease that Storm had in comforting him.

"What do you mean the professor can't catch my projections?" He asked after a moment. Storm had pulled his head to her shoulder, possibly giving him the first maternal affection he'd known since the death of his parents. His sharp mind had grasped hold of the information I had offered him and he wanted more.

"Projections are strong thoughts that people think. Though Xavier and Jean have mental shields to block people out they can't stop the strongest loose thoughts. You're projections are very faint to them." I explained.

"Why?" He demanded.

"Professor Xavier said your own mental shields are unusually strong. He is not sure why, he only knows it would be difficult to read your mind, much less manipulate you. I, too, have very strong shields due to my power, which is rather similar to telekinesis." Storm lent her voice to our instruction.

"So I can learn to block them out?" Hope filled his voice. He lifted his head from Storm's shoulder.

"You already do block them out. I can tell you how you are doing it, but after you have eaten and rested," Storm answered.

"How do you know he's not messing with your minds?" Scott suddenly pointed out harshly.

"Kid, the first thing Chuck or Jean would do if they decided to mess with my mind would be to make me be nicer," I announced. "And they can both easily play with my mind. I don't have the shields you and Storm have even with practice."

Storm giggled and the kid's mouth dropped open.

"Come, Scott. Let's get you back to bed. Logan and I brought you a present. We have some audio books for you to listen for if you do not think you could sleep," Storm said when her amusement at my expense had expired. He allowed her to help him stand and both of us to support him back to the bed. Strong emotion had exhausted him, which was probably why he had been at the window, seeking the strength of the sun.

Storm had won him over. His fear was much less, though not gone. I hung out in the doorway as she helped him learn where the food on his tray was and set up the CD player. When he heard the books, she had found he was pleased. Apparently, he had once tried to start reading the books but never finished them. I wondered if he was a smart one, since I didn't think those books were easy for young kids as he'd been before the emergence of his power.

After he ate and took the antibiotic and pain meds we prepared to leave him to the rise and fall of the actors' voices. Storm had gathered the tray and was in the doorway when he suddenly called her name. "Ms. Munroe!"

"Yes, Scott?" She answered.

"Professor Xavier said you were keeping the sky clear so that I could have the sun." He said. Awe filled his voice and I felt Storm's hand tremble as I reached to take the tray from her.

"Yes dear."

"Thank you." Scott said.

"You are welcome." She answered. We left before she could betray her pity through the tears that had filled her violet eyes and the growing huskiness of her voice. Once we were down stairs, she covered her face. "Logan, all that man Winters had to do was be kind to that child and he would have gained his loyalty for life!" She informed me with horror in her voice.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

**JEAN**

**T** he three days after Scott arrived at the Professor's house passed by so slow that I was sure there was a mutant out there playing with time. I had gained my parents permission to spend the weekend with Xavier, Logan and Storm to help with Scott. My father was especially amused in my interest in the "new student". He teased me mercilessly about Scott, despite my mother's distaste for the jokes he was making. Mom was concerned I might show too much attention to Scott.

"Boys don't need much to encourage their feelings," She informed me. I laughed at the idea that Scott could like me in the way my parents meant. He could not even see me and thanks to my big mouth, he was leery of me. As for me actually liking him in that way, my laughter at Dad's jokes convinced both of them that I saw him as a potential friend my own age who could understand my uniqueness. I was allowed to go.

Saturday morning dawned beautiful. Storm had released her control of the weather the day before. Scott's few days in bed with the sun had improved his health vastly and he was to be allowed out of bed and into the rest of the house on this beautiful day. I was thrilled, hoping to be able to show him around the house and explain things to him.

Although I could have easily ridden my bike, Dad drove me over on his way to work. I grabbed my overnight bag, kissed him goodbye, and dashed up the long driveway to the house. Of course, I had no need to knock and hurried inside without alerting anyone to my presence. I wondered where everyone was when I saw the foyer empty. It was hardly 7:30, but Logan was always up with the sun and Storm rarely slept long.

/ _Jean, please come to my office./_ Professor Xavier summoned. I sighed, but trotted down the hallway towards his large, comfortable office. I knocked at the door. _/Come in, Jean./_

I entered the elegant, rich room. It was full of dark colored wood from the trim to the doors to the vast desk where the professor was seated, fiddling with the Cerebro device. Dark brown leather chairs sat in front of the cherry wood desk. I sank into the one on the right. The chairs were identical, but I liked the right one better since I could see out the window behind the professor when I was in it. Our sessions to teach me control of my powers took place here.

"How are you?" Professor asked with a smile.

"I'm good sir. How is everyone? Is Scott up yet?" I asked eagerly.

"Scott is still asleep I believe. He had a doctor's appointment yesterday and was a little worn out by it. However, he is allowed to leave his bed as long as he rests during the day and does not over work himself. Storm and Logan are preparing a special breakfast to welcome him to the table," The answer came. I smiled; glad I had only eaten a cereal bar that morning. Storm was an excellent cook. Logan liked strange foods, but when Storm watched him he did not make too many of them.

"Jean, dear, you must be very careful with Scott. He is aware of our abilities and he hates that we might have the power to interfere with his mind. It was his last place of refuge in his life before this," The professor spoke gravely and I blushed hotly, aware that I had already violated Scott's haven. "Never use your telepathy on him without permission. Do not even offer to use it, at least for now. He was badly frightened by my revelation. He is now even more careful with his thoughts and I have hardly heard one projection from him since he learned."

"Should I tell him what I did? Does he know?" I blurted.

"No he does not know. Perhaps you should wait a few days. Just accept that Scott may not be friendly towards you, dear. He fears you."

"But why? He's a mutant too. Surely he should get that power can be controlled!"

"On the contrary, Scott's own mutant power cannot be controlled. Although he knows this is unique to himself, he also knows how easy it is to lose control. Besides Scott had to create a place of safety in his own mind because he could not physically hide from the men who were hurting him. We are a threat to that last haven."

I was suddenly ashamed of my power because no one should be afraid of me.

"It will be alright, Jean," Professor Xavier smiled. "Scott has come to believe that Storm, at least, means him no harm. He will soon learn none of us wants to hurt him. We must give him time."

I smiled and nodded, determined that I would accept Scott however he acted.

"Now, shall we join the others in the kitchen?" He offered.

**SCOTT**

Storm had laid out clean clothes on a chair and informed me that I needed to bathe. I had learned the way to the bathroom by heart already. In truth, I was skilled at creating mental maps and probably could have found the bathroom by myself after my first visit. However, Storm or Logan accompanied me to be sure for the first couple of days. I think they were also concerned that I might fall. I must have looked sickly to their eyes; although, I could never remember feeling this strong and resented that I had to stay in bed. Although I never snuck out of the room, I did leave my bed when they expected me to sleep and paced out my room so that I could determine the exact number of steps to each piece of furniture, the window and the closet.

Logan had caught me out of bed once, but he had merely grunted and warned me that if Storm ever caught me out of bed she'd scold my ear off. I was grateful he did not tell her; since I was afraid she might think that I needed to be restrained to the bed for my own good. This would have been a terrifying reminder of Jack's treatment in the past couple of months when he had started restraining me more and more. I risked getting out of bed only when I knew it was probably Logan's turn to check on me and always scrambled back to bed, even when I knew it was Logan's step outside.

Today, at last, I could leave the bed without fear. They were eager for me to leave my room and have a bit more freedom in the house. Storm had said she was going to cook a special breakfast and that I was to eat at the table with what she referred to as my 'new family'. Although I believed Storm meant no harm, I wasn't sure about gruff Logan or enigmatic, powerful Xavier. As for Jean, whom seemed to be a sort of star around the house even when she was gone, I tried not to think about. I was glad she did not live there, since she would have been one more person about whom I would need to be concerned. It unsettled me when I was told she was to spend Saturday and Sunday with us.

The shower was amazing and I stood in there much longer than I had when allowed to bathe in the hospital. This place was different from Jack's place. They weren't going to hurt me for now and they were giving me a little freedom. I did not know why Professor Xavier wanted me yet, but I decided that I would let myself wait to find out. If I could just enjoy the small independences I had now, and not worry about the future, perhaps I could be safe for a little bit.

I dressed in the new jeans and t-shirt that Storm had picked out for me on my first trip from the hospital. Once dressed I returned to my room and made my bed up as neatly as I could. I heard Storm's light footstep in the hallway through my cracked open doorway. An urge to leap back into bed in fear swept through me, but before I could determine what to do she knocked at the door. "I see you are up and dressed," She called. "Are you ready for breakfast?"

For the first time since my arrival, I was ravenous. My stomach no longer hurt when I ate or drank and when Logan had changed the only bandage left around my torso, which covered the worst of the burns Jack had inflicted on me with the iron after my final rebellion, he had said that even that one was starting to looking pink, rather than inflamed red. She offered her arm to me. I heard the silk of the dress she wore shift and tentatively reached out to rest my hand on her bare arm.

She led me out into the hallway, moving slow enough for me to get impressions that the hall was long and rich. I suddenly wondered how big the Professor's house was. He must be rich. If he really did not mean anything against me, I could not understand why he would want to take a broken street rat like me into this house. I could never belong.

"We are going down the stairs. The railing is at your left side," Storm said. I wasn't sure I liked her nickname. She was far too calm. She was like the eye of the storm where it was quiet. I did like her garden scent and her kind caresses.

There were eighteen steps and I could hear our shoes echoing in the room below. We were entering the foyer of the grand house. At the bottom of the stairs, we turned to our left and walked around the stairs to another hallway. At the end of this hallway, we found the dining room. I was immediately aware of the voices and movement of the others. Shyness overcame me and I did not return their greeting with anything more than a little nod.

Storm showed me around the dining room before letting me sit down at the table.

It was a special breakfast indeed. As hungry as I was when I sat down I was beyond full before my plate was empty. There was bacon, eggs, pastries, potatoes, fruit, cheese, and juice.

"Kid you've got to finish yer plate," Logan complained when he saw that I was reduced to picking at the food left. I raised my face in a sort of fascinated horror that I could be forced to eat more than I wanted. They all took my look to mean that I didn't want to eat anymore. "Alright, fine. But we're gonna work on that appetite. You're too skinny."

I could not have spoken had they demanded it. Even in the foster homes I had never been urged to eat more. There were too many mouths to feed. This was a strange place.

"Jean, dear, please don't spill your juice. I know you are working on honing your skills, but risking your nice clothes is not a good idea," Storm announced a moment later. It took me a moment to remember that the girl, who was a curious voice only to me, was a telekinetic and was probably not using her hands to consume her breakfast. I was also relieved that Jean's transgression had taken attention off me. No one demanded that I finish my meal. (I do not think it would have been possible if they had.)

Once the others had finished their breakfast, Storm said she would show me where to clear my dishes, explaining that I was expected to clear my own place after every meal. I carefully held my dishes and shuffled after Storm, glad to find the kitchen was nearby. Jean followed us, with most of the other dishes apparently floating behind her to Storm's chagrin. The girl managed to get the dishes to the counter without mishap and I was sent back to the dining room so that Storm could scold Jean in peace.

Logan was still in the room.

"Jeanie get herself in trouble?" He asked. I nodded mutely. "Red's always trying to do more than she should. Needs a bit more brains in her head." He commented. I was puzzled.

"Red?" I found the table and sat down in a chair again.

"One of the names I use for her. She's got red hair," He explained. Suddenly the vague voice I had for Jean had a color to go along with it. I had already associated the colors chocolate and purple with Storm, who had taken an afternoon to describe herself and her gardens to me. Logan's voice and footsteps were unique. I had nothing to add to that. He was like me. He didn't want to tell what exactly had happened to him. As for Xavier, he had left me mostly alone except for a short visit each day.

After Jean had endured her scolding and assisted Storm in cleaning up the kitchen, they came out to find Logan smoking and me pondering my new information.

"Can we give Scott a tour of the house?" Jean exclaimed. I knew without sight or sound that Logan and Storm were grinning. Her voice was so full of life. Red suited her passion.

Maybe, just maybe this place could be safe.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten**

**SCOTT**

**O** nce I was allowed up, I started feeling even better. I think part of the reason was that they didn't get mad at me. There were plenty of reasons to do so, since I was blind and caused a couple accidents, including one spectacular wreck (involving Jean) that broke a window. Storm and Logan snickered when Jean tried to explain it away. Xavier also laughed and I was astonished that they didn't blow us up for our antics.

Mrs. Malcolm came to visit me after I had been in the house for a week. She told me that she would try to find me another home if I did not like staying there. When I told her that I didn't know she said that I would stay there, but if I ever felt in danger I was to tell her immediately. She said she would be coming back each week to check on me for a little bit. Maybe the idea that I might have a person to tell who could do something about it if someone started hurting me helped contribute to my growing sense of safety.

Jean was always popping by and I quickly learned to associate laughter and mischief with her eager young voice. She was remarkably silly, but she amused Storm and Logan. Before long, I had no doubts about Storm and by extension, I was starting to believe that Logan wouldn't do anything because he listened to her. They were my primary caretakers. It was not long before my final bandages came off, but apparently my appetite was not up to par and they were always conspiring to make me eat more. As for Xavier, he did not intrude, letting me settle in without making any protests against my soon established schedule. I was far too aware of his power to trust him completely, but I soon believed I could guard my mind.

I had been there about two weeks the morning I came to the dining room and found Logan and Xavier eating alone. Despite my curiosity about Storm's whereabouts, I ate in silence. Xavier and Logan were not talking. Without the African woman introducing subjects of mutual interest, no one seemed to want to talk.

When I was about halfway through my meal, Storm entered the room at a slow pace. I was concerned. She was normally very graceful and quick-stepped. Today she seemed weary.

"Good morning weather-witch," Logan teased.

"Shut up," She replied. My mouth dropped open. Storm was never rude no matter how annoying Logan acted. Logan seemed properly abashed, since he obligingly shut up and soon escaped the room. I picked at the rest of my meal, my stomach churning with my worries. I could hear thunder outside and wondered if it had anything to do with Storm's mood.

As soon as I had managed to clear enough of my plate that I felt she would not be mad at me I hurried to take my dishes to the kitchen and fled the dining room. Since it had started raining, I couldn't go outside, though I thought that's where Logan had gone. For a little bit I hid myself in one of the parlors with the ear phones and audio books that Storm had brought home one day. It was difficult to lose myself in the story.

"Scott?" Xavier opened the door and called.

"Yes, sir," I stood up from the corner where I had hid myself.

"Storm has gone to lie down. It is best if you come to Logan or me if you need anything." He said.

"Yes, sir," I replied, standing stiffly at attention. He sighed and hesitated in the doorway as though he wanted to say more. Finally, he left me to my sanctuary. But by now, I was really worried.

I put my book away and decided that since it was now only misting I was going to venture outside and hope Logan was in the area.

**LOGAN**

Despite all Storm's desire not to affect the weather because of her mood, the storms hovered over our heads releasing a light mist. I wandered about the grand old park behind Xavier's house before deciding that I didn't want to be wet. My beloved Harley waited for my attention in the garage. For about an hour, I worked in silence, enjoying the peace of the garage.

My peace was interrupted by a shuffling footstep and the scent of an intruder. I glanced up at the door as Scott touched the door, his sensitive hand running along the cold metal to determine where he was. I was surprised the kid (who was in desperate need of a nickname) had wandered so far. Jean may have shown him to the garage on one of her numerous visits, but he was unaccompanied. We probably should've gotten him a blind man's stick, although he was exceptionally skilled at learning his way. He never seemed lost.

"You okay?" I called. He paused halfway through the door, his body tensing, although I could see his head lift with success. He did not immediately answer my question, carefully shutting the door behind him. I noted that he stayed very close to the door.

"Yes, I'm okay. I was concerned about Storm. Something is wrong with her," He explained. I was surprised he'd picked it up. Storm would never have yelled at him. He would never have done something to make her want to yell at him. I grinned.

"She'll be alright in a day or two," I promised.

"Is she sick?" He pressed for more information. I wasn't sure how much the kid knew.

"Naw. It's just part of being a woman," I hinted. Despite the bandage that covered his face, he contrived to look surprised. Great. I did not want to have this conversation.

"Oh," He considered my explanation. "Does it always make her upset?"

"It makes all women upset, or at least the ones I've known," I replied. "Best thing to do is to hide."

"Does she want you to hide?" He asked, curiously.

"Well, she wants _me_ to stay out of the way. I ain't the most tactful person in the world."

"Can I stay here too?" He asked. I scowled at his request, since I knew the Professor would urge me to agree to it and I like my quiet time.

"If you stay quiet. I'm hidin' out here cause it's a good place to be when you want to be alone."

If he hadn't been so disturbed by Storm he probably would have run off after I spoke. But he found a seat on the concrete floor and listened to me working on my lovely bike. It would have been very easy to forget he was there, but I was curious about what he was doing, since he wasn't moving a muscle. I would go stir crazy without something to do, be it drinking, smoking or tinkering. His actual silence bothered me.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Nothing," He lifted his head in frightened puzzlement.

"That's the point. Are you just thinking?" I started polishing the bike.

"Yes."

"Storm ain't gonna bite your head off," I addressed the source of his concern. He nodded uncertainly. I sighed and gave up my quiet time. "You ever rode a Harley?"

"No."

"You ever seen a Harley?" I demanded.

"It's a motorcycle, right?" He replied.

"Come here and touch her," I commanded. He got to his feet and walked unerringly towards my voice until he found my arm outstretched to keep him from walking into my toolbox. He let me guide his hand to my shiny beauty. Once he touched the glossy cover, I let his hand go and watched his fingers explore the bike while I rattle off the information about her. He asked for no explanation. So, he wasn't completely uneducated about boys' toys.

He helped me finish polishing her and we discussed engines like two designers. Scott knew his engines. He seemed to know more about planes than bikes. I thought the professor had mentioned that his father had been an air force pilot. He was completely relaxed as we talked. I grinned. He'd forgotten all about moody Storm.

When we had polished both my bikes and examined the other three cars in the vast garage, I glanced outside and discovered the sun was peeking through the clouds. Our weather witch had relaxed, or gone to sleep. I grabbed a helmet and shoved it against his chest. "Put it on," I ordered as I fetched the keys to the gleaming red bike. 

He lifted his face, mouth opened in pleased surprise. By the time, I returned to where he stood after opening the garage door and letting sunlight stream in he had put the helmet on and was waiting for my next instructions. I climbed on the bike and told him to get on the second seat behind me. He scrambled on and obediently wrapped his thin arms around my chest at my command. "If you're okay after a bit you can lean back, but I don't want to risk you getting messed up and falling off," I explained. He nodded, but his face was still lit up.

I started the bike and grinned as I realized this passenger could not keep up a running mantra in my head. My last passenger (Jean) had never shut up. He was a natural, moving with the bike as though he understood the winds and road. Even blind, he experienced no dizziness nor lost his equilibrium. His grip on my torso relaxed after we'd been riding about five minutes. My gift was rewarded. He got what riding was about. It was about losing yourself at 60 miles per hour in the wind and the world flying by. It wasn't about observing every thing that happened, but letting it happen without worrying about it.

Storm could command the wind to lift her up in invisible arms and Jean's mind could levitate her. Neither of them understood my fascination with the speed and balance of a bike. It's like flying. Since neither Scott nor I could fly under our own power this was the best we could do under our own control. It was peaceful.

/ _Logan, is Scott with you?/_ The professor interrupted my quiet as I raced over a hill.

/ _Yeah. He was upset about Storm so I took him out for a ride./_

_/Was that wise? He is blind and could lose his balance easily./_

_/Naw. He's a natural. I think it would take more than a racing bike to make him lose his equilibrium./_

_/All right. Just don't be out too long. He's still gaining strength./_ With that admonishing, the quiet hum that indicated the professor was in my mind, disappeared. I glanced at the time, and was shocked to find that we'd been racing the roads around Bayville for nearly an hour. If I had thought Slim would have been comfortable I would have taken him to a hamburger joint for a meal, but I quickly scratched that idea. The kid was rarely at ease around the four of us, or even just the three of us when Jean was at home. Taking him to a restaurant in the middle of the lunch rush would not be my smartest idea. Slim. That suited the beanpole.

We turned around and headed back to the mansion.

Fifteen minutes later, we growled to a stop in the garage and we both sat still for a moment, enjoying the sensation that we were still moving. My stomach growled. "I think lunch would be a good idea."


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter Eleven**

**SCOTT**

**L** ogan's gift made me realize that he too wanted the best for me. Even though he was supposed to be the one whose mind would fall to Xavier or Jean easiest I knew he was also the strongest. He could have run away long ago if he didn't trust Xavier. My realization that I had finally fallen into a good place brought about a curious question. What did Xavier want with me?

I was full of strength after two weeks. Sunlight, safety, good food and good rest were granting my body the sustenance it required. This is when I learned that my most grievous injury was not to my body, but my mind. My first nightmare happened on the two-week anniversary of my arrival at the mansion. I had one every night for a week without telling my guardians. They were growing steadily worse.

After a week, I was afraid to go to sleep. That night I lay awake for hours. I did not want to see my worst moments thrown together in a sickening jumble that would leave my heart racing and my sheets and clothes soaked with sweat. But my body needed sleep. I dozed.

The dream that night was the worst yet because Storm and Jean were there, getting hurt because I couldn't stop Jack. I was too weak and they were hurting me every time I tried to fight. We were suddenly in an airplane and Jack threw the women out of the plane despite my struggle to save them. Then he started punching me and burning me and I was sobbing and shaking. I could fight no longer. When he picked me up and dangled me out of the plane I could see the long fall to the ground. I could see the terror waiting to race up at me. So I screamed.

"HELP ME!"

"Scott! Wake up," Storm's hands were there, grabbing my flailing arms. Logan was there too. I could hear his gruff voice asking what he should do. I shook with sobs and tried to pull away from Storm, but her arms were strong. She and Logan untangled me from my blankets. "Sh. It will be alright," She let us both sink to the cool floor. I could hear Logan yawn and then strip my soaked bed.

"Scott. Are you alright?" Professor Xavier was there and his voice held a grave, warning note. I did not answer, because I was not all right.

"I'm sorry." I finally choked out.

"Scott, you had a horrible dream. You have no reason to be sorry," Xavier's voice told me that he'd seen some of the dream. I stiffened.

"Are you reading my mind?" I hissed.

"You were screaming for help in your dream," He explained. "Your mind dropped every shield you had to call for help." I shuddered as I suddenly realized that I had projected my dream into his mind. He'd probably been asleep.

"It's okay Scott. You're safe," Xavier's chair came closer and he reached his hand to touch my soaked hair. I could feel him trying to help me.

"I thought you couldn't get into my mind," I tried to get up, but Storm would not let me go.

"Your shields are still down. You're still calling for help," He said gently. I broke into sobs. Hot tears slid out of my bound eyes and soaked my bandage. I could not get my mind in order and the harder I fought the more exhausted I became. At last, I sank deeper into Storm's arms and did the one thing I had never done before. I gave up.

Xavier must have felt my despair. Suddenly I felt a warm thought in my mind. / _You are safe./_ He surrounded my mind and suddenly I could see through his eyes. He showed me the beautiful woman cradling the scrawny boy and the gruff man who was trying to help by wrestling clean sheets on the bed. Then he set me back in my own mind and helped me find the shields. Once he showed me my shields in my mind I understood what I needed to do and I pulled them up.

"Perhaps you would like to clean up in the bathroom and then come downstairs for some hot cocoa. I find a hot drink helps me deal with my own sleeping troubles," Xavier offered.

"I could use a burning drink myself," Logan suggested.

"Logan," Storm sighed in exasperation. She helped me find some clean pajamas and then let me bathe myself in cool water in the bathroom. I crept downstairs and found all three of them were still up, waiting for me with hot chocolate and a couple of cookies left over from Jean's last visit. I sat down at the table and listened to them discuss remedies for lack of sleep or bad dreams. My lips twitched at Logan's bluntly expressed restorative treatments. Storm slapped him as he grew more crude. Xavier laughed. I had never felt safer in my life.

"Are you feeling better?" Storm inquired kindly after Logan had finally ended his list of unique ways to help ward off insomnia or nightmares. I nodded, and carefully lifted my head. They had come to recognize that I wanted to say something when I had my head up like a seeing person. It felt nice when they did not speak even though I could not put my thoughts into words at first. "Professor Xavier, what do you.. I mean are you... why did you take me in?"

"Because I know that you need help and that I am best suited to offer that help. I have been able to teach many mutants about their unique needs. When I heard about you I knew you needed to come here. I only wish we had found you sooner," He explained.

"How did you hear about me?"

"I have many friends in various places. When you were found in Essex's lab one of my friends learned about you. We were looking for you after you left the hospital."

My mouth dropped open. During my time on the streets and the hell in Jack's basement, someone had been trying to find me and help me. I hadn't known it but I had had a friend fighting for me. A shiver ran up my back. I wasn't sure if I was frightened or awed.

Xavier began to explain his work and how he'd gotten into his field. I hardly heard a word in my amazement and before long I had fallen asleep with my head on the table. I work briefly when Logan picked me up to carry me back to bed, but I trusted him and even before he'd gotten me to bed, I had drifted back into a good sleep.

**JEAN**

"You're unusually quiet and thoughtful this morning," My older sister Sarah, who was home from college on summer break, broke into my reverie that morning at the breakfast table. I scowled, partly because she had interrupted my important mental considerations and partly because I wasn't in the best mood after not enough sleep. I had woken in the middle of the night with the feeling that I had had a bad dream, but I couldn't recall my dream. I had lain awake for a little while until startled with the realization that I had never seen Scott Summers smile. Why this had come to me in the middle of the night I wasn't sure. All I knew was that it was now my mission in life to make Scott smile. "Don't glare at me, Jean. What's on your mind?"

I considered my big sister, fount of wisdom that she was. There were enough years between us that I couldn't really remember her being a kid. Finally, I decided she might know what to do. "I have a friend who doesn't smile. I need to make him smile."

"Oh," She said, and took another bit of her French toast before requesting more information. "Is this the blind kid Xavier took in last month?"

"His name is Scott and yes its him."

"Maybe he forgot how to smile. What Mom has told me about him sounds like his life has been pretty rough," She pointed out.

"Yes, but he is safe now."

"Jean, sometimes recovering from abuse is harder than going through it. You need to give Scott time."

My shoulders dropped. I wanted to see his smile. I knew it would be a nice one. It wasn't fair that I had to wait.

I rode my bike to Xavier's that morning. It was my day to work with the Professor. I was in a sour mood as I came up the driveway, but my puzzlement soon cleared that up. It was nearly ten in the morning and they were eating breakfast.

"Did you all sleep late?" I demanded as I entered. I startled Scott, since Logan's laughter had masked my entrance.

"We had a late night," Xavier smiled at me. I pouted, wishing I could be in on their little bonding moments. It was clear that yesterday had brought about some change in Scott. Even after I had startled him he had went back to eating as though nothing had happened. "You were already going to spend the afternoon with us, Jean. I don't think us getting a late start will interfere with any plans you had."

"Maybe," I said darkly.

"I hope your plans were indoor," Storm's eyes took on a far away look as she examined the weather. "It will be raining in an hour."

"Can't you keep it back for a little bit?" I whined.

"Jean, I think the farmers would not like that idea," Storm answered. I plopped into a chair next to Scott and stole a potato from his plate.

"Logan made the potatoes." Scott informed me as I stuck the potato in my mouth. My eyes widened as the unique spices startled me. Once I had swallowed my stolen food and had washed the spices down with Logan's water I glared at the boy.

"Warn me earlier next time."

"I shouldn't have to warn you about my food at all," He shot back. All three adults paused in their discussion of their plans to glance at him, smiles breaking out on their faces. My mouth had dropped open. I'd taken his food before and he'd never so much as pouted at me, much less challenged me.

I rose to the challenge and used my telekinesis to go for his bacon. He grabbed it out of the air and licked it, winning that battle. I was amazed by how easily he had known what I was doing with his food since he couldn't see. If this was how he fought, we were going to have lots of fun. He'd be a challenge for me.

Despite another attempt to beg Storm to keep the skies clear so I could have my fun she refused and so after a couple hours working with Xavier I was released into the huge house, imprisoned by a heavy downpour. I found Scott in the big window at the end of the upstairs hallway. He had earphones in and was listening to music and the drumbeat of the rain hitting the window. I studied him as I headed towards him. He was looking taller and he'd started gaining weight as Logan and Storm figured out his favorite foods. The last of his injuries had healed in the last week. He no longer winced with a wrong movement and he rarely needed to lie down during the day.

"Are you done working with Professor Xavier?" He asked.

"Yes. How did you know it was me?" I asked.

"When you float down the hallway there is no wind. Storm makes wind when she flies."

"You heard me floating?"

"Yes," He replied.

"This just isn't fair. You are much better at this than I am."

He raised an eyebrow as he considered my inconsiderate statement. In truth, I should have the advantage. I could see and I could levitate. He could do neither and had to rely on senses other than sight. I probably shouldn't try to sneak up on him, but I had yet to catch him off guard.

"Do you want to go to the library?" I asked. "We could play a board game."

"Do you promise not to cheat?" He asked. He was on a roll with challenging me today.

"Yes," I answered, meaning what I said.

"I don't have the way to the library memorized," He told me, shutting off his music and standing up. I took his hand to lead him, remembering in time to walk normal so he could count the steps.

We found the library vacant. Storm was probably enjoying the rain on the roof and Logan had disappeared into the basement gym. Professor Xavier was tinkering with Cerebro. I dug out a chess game. Within twenty minutes, I discovered that Scott did not need his sight. He could picture the board in his mind and creamed me easily. I needed to lose two more games, quicker every time, before acknowledging I was facing a master of chess. He could plan twenty moves while I could barely figure out what I was doing on my present move.

"New game," I announced. I reopened the cabinet where the games were kept and searched for a game where I might be better. As I did, he got up and began to explore the library. I do not think he had been in it since his first tour. I watched him idly until I had a good idea. "Would you like me to read out loud?"

He turned towards me and pursed his lips. "Do you think there are any Braille books?" He asked. I was surprised.

"Do you know Braille?" I asked, heading for the nearest shelf.

"Yes. When I lived on the streets the kids I protected taught me Braille when we warmed up in the libraries," He explained. I started searching the shelves in hopes that I could find a book in this unique language.

"You protected other street kids?" I asked.

"They didn't want to get pulled into a gang or owned by a pimp. I was able to scare the bad guys off. A few kids who were on the streets because the life they came from was worse asked me to protect them." His fingers were dancing over the book titles, seeking the raised dots that would let him read.

I was amazed by his knowledge and the little bit of history he had shared with me. He'd been blind and yet he'd been the one protecting the others. I think he was the strongest person I had ever met. Not even Logan could boast the character Scott had.

We searched the whole library before I found three books nestled in a forgotten corner that were in Braille. He took them and ran his fingers over the titles. I watched his face light up. "What is it?" I demanded.

"I never got to finish reading this one before the police caught us in the streets." He held up the thinnest of the books.

"What book is it?" I asked.

"Peter Pan." He answered. He took the book to the desk and laid it flat, running his hands along the raised paper. I watched him for a minute. Suddenly he smiled. My heart leapt. It was a crooked, uneven smile, as if he had forgotten what a smile was.

I watched his hands sliding across the paper in amazement. When I realized I was not getting my opponent back I headed to find Professor Xavier. He was still in his office and he looked up as I burst into the room. "Scott smiled." I announced importantly.

Xavier's own smile matched my own. "Good. What did you do to bring this improvement about?"

"He can read Braille and we found a couple of books in the library in Braille. One of them was Peter Pan and he started reading it," I explained. "I think he smiled at what he read."

"He can read Braille? I did not think he had anywhere to learn," Xavier was surprised.

"Professor, when he lived on the streets he was taking care of some kids who helped him figure it out," I explained. I saw awe cross my mentor's face. I was right. Scott was a special person.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter Twelve**

**SCOTT**

**I** woke up with a headache. It wasn't a simple one that would go away in a few hours. It was one of the bad ones that would leave me shaken and exhausted. I had hoped that since I was getting good care my headaches would go away. I had had one in the hospital but the painkillers had dulled it. For a few moments, I wondered if I should even get out of bed, but decided to see if eating would help.

Jean had spent the night after spending a long afternoon shopping with Storm. She was still chattering about their purchases this morning and since she was seated right next to me I had a lot of trouble not wincing. My stomach was churning and I could barely eat a few bites. Finally, I cleared my mostly full plate and sought out the cool library in hopes that I could relieve the pain there.

Unfortunately, Jean sought me out a few hours later and set up a checkerboard. She was thrilled when she proceeded to beat me three games in a row. It was a great relief to have Storm summon her to the kitchen so they could bake. I went outside into Storm's garden to hope the sunlight would help as well as to hide from Jean.

I fell asleep on one of the benches. Logan sought me out when I didn't show up for lunch. I cautiously entered the dining room to be met by Jean's exuberance. My head ached so badly I wanted to throw up or cry. Jean prattled on and on. I fought to eat a little. Storm commented on my lack of appetite and asked if I was all right.

"I'm tired. I've got a headache," I explained.

"Why don't you lie down?" She suggested.

I tried to lie down in my room, but spent several hours tossing and turning. The pressure in my head was growing stronger. When Jean found me sitting up she begged me to come outside where she was about to show off her newest trick. I stumbled after her wishing I could lose the headache.

**LOGAN**

Jean was rounding up Slim. She'd found him awake and was eager to have him there so he felt apart of us, though of course he could not see what she was going to do. We all indulged Jeanie's delight. She was the light and life of our sometimes quiet and gloomy home. Storm, Xavier and I had gathered at the gazebo where Jean was going to perform.

"The child isn't going to do anything dangerous, is she?" Storm asked.

"I don't know what she is doing. She is keeping it a secret from me too," Xavier answered with a happy smile. He loved Jean's exuberance.

I saw her red head appear as she left the back yard to head into the park where the gazebo was situated. Slim was following her slowly. He had walked this way with Jean several times and had once followed Storm out here on his own. I was surprised how uncertainly he was moving. "She's forgotten he may not know the way," I pointed out.

He was listing to one side. I stood up as I suddenly realized that it was not uncertainty that was causing his slow steps. "Jean, Scott's going to fall," I hollered. She turned around in surprise at the very moment the boy dropped into a heap. We raced to his side, uncertain what was wrong.

Jean was trying to get him onto his back when we came up but he was curled up, hands clutching his head. His teeth were gritted and he was moaning. "What's wrong?" Jean asked.

"He's running a fever," Storm cried out. "Jean get some cold water and some rags."

Xavier came up more slowly as our fire headed gal ran back to the house. I scooped Slim up. His whole body was tense with pain and he cried out with the slightest movement. His hands went to the bandage over his eyes and he whimpered. "Is it your headache?" Storm asked. "Is it worse, Scott?"

He did not answer, shuddering as I moved him off the hard path onto the softer grass. Storm was doing her best to find a position for him to lay in that would help relieve the pain.

"Jean's bringing some pain killers with her," Xavier announced after a moment. Scott started heaving and I helped him upright so that he could vomit into the grass rather than on himself. He hadn't eaten enough that day to throw up and after a half a minute of dry heaves he cried out and seemed to pass out.

"Charles, what is wrong?" Storm cried.

"Scott, I'm going to try to touch your mind. Can you tell me what is wrong?" Xavier asked. He closed his eyes and sat rigid for a moment as Jean came racing back, water, rags and blankets following her in a telekinetic bubble.

"Is he alright?" She demanded as she lowered the supplies to Storm's hands. Scott was shaking again.

Xavier opened his eyes. "He gets headaches a lot. Apparently ever since the plane accident. Usually they go away after a day, but this one is the worst he's had," He explained. He considered the whimpering child again. "I wonder..." He closed his eyes to concentrate on Scott's mind. The boy must have been desperate enough to lower his shields for Jean cried out, as she tasted a bit of the pain racking Slim's scrawny body. It was several moments before Xavier painfully opened his eyes. "I think Scott needs to open his eyes," He explained. The rest of us looked aghast at him.

"No!" Scott cried out, the fear of his power spurring him past the pain for that brief moment.

"Scott, I don't think the headache will get better unless you let the energy out. Before you've never been able to build up enough reserves for it to be dangerous but I am afraid if you don't release some of the pent up energy you could hurt yourself," Xavier explained. "Logan, bring him to the open. Jean and Storm, stay here."

I lifted the boy again. He was in so much pain sweat poured off his body and he was as rigid as a board. Xavier and I brought him to the open yard and I propped him up so that he faced the empty space and would not hit anything. "We're all behind you and there is nothing you can damage if you open your eyes," I told him, carefully unwrapping the bandage. His eyes were swollen underneath and he looked younger than ever with his whole face revealed. I lifted his head so that he looked at the ground some yards away.

"Open your eyes!" Xavier cried. "Scott you're going to hurt yourself. There is no one you can hurt if you open your eyes."

I think if the pain had been less the kid wouldn't have done it but he'd already proved that he was past the point of endurance. He finally opened his eyes. It took every ounce of my will not to leap up in shock as red, raw energy that looked like light, yet punched the ground with enough forced to make the ground exploded in a little shower of dirt and grass, shoot of his eyes. He screamed as if it hurt him. I wondered if it did hurt or if it was just the shocking release.

Xavier stared in amazement at the power that poured out of the kid. The boy was truly a living weapon. No wonder he'd become a pawn in the gang wars. He'd seemed so weak, the strength of his eyes hidden by the enforced blindness. Jean and Storm disobeyed and drew nearer to get a better look at the raw energy still digging a hole into the yard.

He had his eyes open for five whole minutes before he sighed and closed his eyes, falling weakly into my chest. Now he was limp as a boned fish, either unconscious or exhausted. I carefully wrapped the bandage around his eyes, reminded why the bandage was there in the first place. Xavier stared at the three-foot deep hole the boy's power had ripped into the ground.

"Oh, wow." Jean was the first to speak. Then she turned her brilliant green eyes on Scott. "Scott are you alright?"

"It's getting better," He whispered.

"Should we bring him inside?" Storm asked.

"No. He released enough that I think staying out in the sun will be better for him. Perhaps we should make him more comfortable," Xavier said. Scott seemed to have fallen asleep, but he woke when I picked him up again to carry him back to the patio behind the house. Setting him one of the lounge chairs, I stepped back to let Jean and Storm fuss over him. Xavier watched, his face grim and frustrated as his disability would not allow him to help anymore than he already had.

**SCOTT**

I slept the remainder of the day outside. It surprised me that the headaches seemed to be caused, or at least worsened, by my power. Even more, it shocked and frightened me that there was a way to release the pressure. I hated the feel of the power rushing through me. It did not hurt. It felt good in fact, and I despised myself for that fact. Something so deadly should not feel so pleasing.

Despite the fact that the headache had utterly disappeared I was still so weak by evening that Logan had to help me walk into the house. He did not vacate my bedroom until I was safely in bed and had managed to eat a little dinner. It felt nice to have him worry. I knew they were all worried.

By morning, I felt much better, though I could feel my guardians watching me anxiously at the breakfast table. They were unusually quiet. I had not realized how much I had frightened them the day before. My ravenous appetite and lack of weakness convinced them that I was better. After breakfast, Xavier asked me to come into his study.

"Scott, the headaches could seriously hurt you. You need to open your eyes more often," He told me.

"I don't want to open my eyes," I told him.

"I know it scares you," His voice was gentle and he laid a hand on my arm. "I promise you that we will make sure you do not hurt anyone or anything."

"You saw what it does. It's too dangerous."

"Scott, we need to do something for you. I want to see you healthy and strong and if you get these headaches often I fear for your safety," He replied. I wrapped my arms around me and stubbornly shook my head. If the headache got so bad I might not have a choice, but I wasn't going to risk it until I had to. "Perhaps we can find something else to help." He suggested slowly.

I let my shoulders slump. I was so tired of fighting. So tired of being blind. "I'm afraid," I told him honestly. "I don't want to go through tests."

"I know. What if we made a deal? We will only look for ways to help you an hour a day and if you ever need to stop we will not continue. Can you give us a chance to prove me mean no harm?" He asked.

For a long time I thought about what he said. Could I trust them not to hurt me, not to turn the examinations I knew would be required into experiments that would hurt and humiliate me? I believed they did just want what was best for me and I knew that the Professor was right. I could not live like this the rest of my life. "Promise me if I can't do it you'll stop," I agreed.


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter Thirteen**

**SCOTT**

**T** he next month was difficult for us all. Mr. McCoy arrived from school to help the professor. I suffered through panic attacks and nightmares. My guardians suffered through my terrors, bad moods and broken cries. But Xavier kept his promise. Any time I was about to freak out and begged them to stop, despite the fact that most of the time there was nothing unusual about the examination, they would stop and let me leave. This happened every day for the first week. The second week I managed to get through four days without running away. By the third week, I was no long running away, though I now had to open my eyes and let the power slam into the strong wall in the basement. Apparently, it had been a bomb shelter during the cold war.

All of my new friends were amazingly patient with me. Xavier would spend hours telling me about his family's history to get my mind off the tests. Storm let me hide out in her garden whenever I was overwhelmed. Logan took me on long bike rides. Jean was always in and out, a fresh reminder that I wasn't a prisoner. Mr. McCoy, well he used to forget I was a kid. He told me things I never heard about, in long sentences and words. Sometimes he'd quote philosophers and poets and get me so interested in their words and lives that I'd forget I was on an examination table, or under some sort of scanner.

They worked slowly, explaining every step of the way to me. Mr. McCoy spent hours in the basement lab translating the data they had gained from their examinations. At last they were done. One Saturday afternoon we all gathered outside to hear the results.

"Well Scott, you truly are a very unique individual," Hank told me. "As we surmised, you take in UV rays and turn it into energy. However, you produce so much of it that your body tries to release it through your eyes. You seem uniquely able to create the psionic energy, which probably explains why you have such strong mental shields. From what I can tell you ought to be able to control the power and only release at your will, but the damage that was done to your brain from the plan accident seems to have cut you off from any possible control."

"So I am stuck like this," I commented.

"Perhaps. In doing our tests, I noted that your beam seems to have a harder time affecting quartz rock. I would like to do some more tests with different kinds of quartz. If one of them was strong enough to dispel or reflect your beams perhaps a pair of glasses could be formed to allow you to see." Hank replied. "I have certainly not given up on that possibility yet."

"Scott, you are what are classed as an Alpha mutant. Your x-gene was possibly active long before your power emerged. You may yet develop secondary powers. Jean is also an Alpha mutant, which is one of the reasons she had two powers. Alphas are rare among mutants. There are six classes of x-gene holders. The lowest is Zeta and ninety plus percent of the world's population is in this class. They are those who have the gene, but it is jumbled or inactive. Epsilon and Delta are very similar. They are those whose x-gene could be turned on should something traumatic happen to them, like the researchers who now serve as the Fantastic Four. The difference between these two classes is that Epsilon's are usually low function mutations while Delta would turn into a high functional power. Gamma is the first class in which an x-gene would be turned on by puberty. These rarely have more than one power as their gene seems to malfunction somewhat. Betas are those whose x-gene is fully active, but who never develop secondary powers or who seems to have some sort of block to gaining more power. Both Storm and Logan would be Beta. Most mutants who would be noticed are Gamma's or Beta's. I also would be a high functioning Beta. You and Jean are the only Alpha mutants I am personally aware of."

"So I can't even hope it'll shut off one day," I muttered.

"Hank will figure something out," Jean snapped at my moroseness. I quit making comments out loud, but if they had offered any more knowledge I would have internally reminded myself that even if I was some sort of super mutant it really made life worse for me. I could not open my eyes! Jean had control over her powers. She could close of her mind and not use it. Thanks to the worst day of my life, I was not only an orphan but also apparently my brain couldn't handle the power.

"As we have already seen, you heal quickly. You probably have more stamina than a normal person does. This is probably because you use the energy you convert. You just have too much to use and must get rid of it, through your eyes. If you close your eyes, it builds up, causing the debilitating headaches. I think the energy leaks from your reserves as well because you have no way to tell it to stop. This is why you must open your eyes, preferably once a week if not at least once a day," Hank finished.

Three days later Logan brought me into the basement. Hank had procured thick blocks of different kinds of quartz. I sat down in the seat and waited until Hank and Logan were behind me; in a little room, they had built to allow me to feel sure, I could not hit anyone without some warning. I opened my eyes. The white quartz shattered after only moments and I closed my eyes while the two men replaced it with a block of black quartz.

I opened my eyes and watched is shock as the beam struck the rock and came back towards me. Logan yelled, but to my fascination, I felt only pressure against my face as my body reabsorbed the psionic energy. I closed my eyes. "That was interesting. Apparently you cannot be harmed by your own power," Hank said. "We're going to try ruby quartz now."

Once more, I waited until the door on the room closed and assured myself I could hear no one moving or breathing. I opened my eyes. Red power shot the couple of yards from my eyes to the thick block of quartz. These did not reflect the beams back, nor did the quartz shatter. The beams seemed to have no effect on the quartz whatsoever. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and reopened them.

The same result. My heart skipped several beats in shock and hope.

**JEAN**

**A** ugust 8th bloomed to life with a glorious sun. Sarah dropped me off at Xavier's early, before breakfast. My parents and Sarah were to come to a special meal that night, but I wanted to be there when Scott woke up because today was a special day. Today was his fifteenth birthday, his first birthday since his rescue. Scott usually came down last, though he woke with the sun. He had an innate sense of time and once he knew when everyone else would be up, he came down.

Storm and Logan were in the kitchen, flicking frosting at each other when I walked in. She blushed hotly when I saw them, while Logan merely smiled coolly at me. " 'morning Red," He commented. "Slim ain't up yet."

"I came early so I could be part of the surprise," I informed him.

Xavier entered the kitchen, eyebrow rising when he saw me. "Well Jean, I think you are here early."

I explained once more. Scott entered at my last word. We all turned to look at him with huge smiles on our faces, though this was lost on him. He hesitated, puzzled by our sudden silence. "What's wrong?" He asked and I nearly choked on my amusement that he would think something was wrong.

"Happy birthday," We replied in unison. He was still puzzled.

"Whose birthday is it?"

"Yours, silly. It's August 8th." I said.

He sat down and considered this statement. We were all rather confused by his reaction. Xavier rolled over to touch Scott's arm. "Are you alright, son?" He asked.

"Is this really my birthday? I can't remember," He said.

"Yes, Scott."

"How could you forget your birthday?" I cried and blushed under Storm's warning look. Scott shrugged, hardly upset with me. He knew I didn't mean anything with my exuberance.

"I never had a birthday before that I could remember." His voice trailed off and he grabbed the table as if he were suddenly dizzy. Before any of us could ask what was wrong he whispered a name. "Alex! I can remember Alex's birthday."

Alex was his lost little brother. For a moment, even I was quiet out of respect for the loss that had changed his life. Yet Scott did not seem saddened by the memory. A rare smile lit up his face. Despite the amount of time, he spent outside soaking up the much-needed sunlight his skin barely darkened and he didn't burn either. Yet he was still tanner than I was with my fair skin under red hair. "I remembered," He turned to where Xavier still sat by the boy. "I remembered something from when they were all alive."

We all smiled again, with sweet enjoyment in his birthday blessing. Then Storm and Logan served breakfast, while I took upon myself the honor of telling Scott that since it was his special day I would not make him do anything he did not want to do and he was not supposed to let me, since there were times when I wasn't sure if he liked what I had chosen for us to do or not. He teased me that such freedom might go to his head. I ignored his well-aimed shot, since I was a bit bossy and Scott never fought for his own pleasures; I proceeded instead to tell him that there would be a little party for him that evening and that my family was coming as well.

He had met my parents and sister at various times when they dropped me off or picked me up and though for a moment he looked truly frightened by the prospect, he had soon lost his apprehension. It would be the first socializing, excepting me but I didn't count, outside of his new family. After breakfast, Scott and I went outside. It was a truly glorious morning.

I basked in the beauty, gazing at a silky turquoise sky under the golden reign of the sun. Scott's face was tilted towards the sun. He seemed happy with this simple delight, but I felt sad that he could not see the vista before me. "Scott it's so beautiful out today. I wish you could see it. Maybe..." I broke off as the enormity of what I had nearly suggested reminded me that he would never want what I could offer.

"I can feel and smell the kind of day it is. I'm all right. What were you going to say?" He smiled, turning his face towards me in imitation of a person with full vision.

"I forgot that you did not like telepathy," I explained. He cocked his head and pursed his lips together. "I was going to ask if you wanted me to show you what it looks like," I faltered, afraid I would have hurt him.

He was quiet for a very long time and I positively came to hate the fact that half his face was covered. He excelled at keeping his emotions from his lower face and only showed us what he was feeling when he felt completely safe. Since my suggestion was something he found frightening, he had masked his face. When I saw that he wasn't going to answer I turned back to the sky, but hot tears stung my eyes in shame that I hadn't considered his feelings.

Suddenly his hand took hold of mine. "Jean I trust you," He said. "I believe that if you touched my mind you would not hurt me. But I don't think you should see what is in my mind. You don't know everything that has happened to me."

Shamed flooded me because I _did_ know. I had seen enough in my unethical break of his mind before we had saved him.

"Scott, I have to tell you something. I have been in your mind, before you were safe. Professor Xavier had been searching for you so long and he built Cerebro for helping his search. It helped him find you, but since your shields were so strong he couldn't get your attention. I thought maybe I could get your attention and so I used Cerebro without permission," I hesitated. "The Professor would never do what I did, but I wanted to find you so badly that I latched onto the only projection I could find and was able to force my way into your mind then. I shouldn't have done it and I am so sorry. I'm afraid I didn't do a good job of masking my psyche and I saw some of your memories. I saw you," Slowly I looked into his face. His hand had left mine at the beginning of my confession and he now sat with his face turned away from me, arms wrapped about his knees. He projected shame. I was stunned. The evil things that had been done to him were not his fault.

"I could only do it since you weren't aware that it could happen. Now you keep your mind so locked up that I would have to overwhelm your mind to get in and that would be far too dangerous for both of us," I hurried to assure him that his mental shields were still as strong as he had been told. "Please don't hate me, Scott. I swear I did not mean to hurt you."

"You were the fire girl in my dream, weren't you?" He said. I remembered that he had seen me as a fire.

"I might have been," I answered.

His hand came back to my arm. "I trust you," He said quietly, turning his face back towards me. "If you want to show me I'm okay with it."

I mutely squeezed his hand and then reached my mind towards his. His shields yielded to my gentle touch. It felt right touching his mind. There was comfort and rest there, reminding me of the delight of coming home. It was as if a piece of me that had been missing was now in place. He felt content, sure of my good intent. Then I fed him the images I was seeing.

Pleasure and longing flooded him as we shared the beauties of nature, the swaying green-clad trees, the cool blue sky and the flaming power of the sun. I had to wipe a tear away as his craving to see these things with his own eyes was flamed to life anew. I was almost ashamed, but there was enough delight in my gift that I knew he was happy to see through my eyes. I turned to look at him and he gasped.

_/That's weird/_

_/Seeing yourself through my eyes?/_

_/Yes. I wish I could see you. Professor Xavier has shown me Storm and Logan, but I've got no idea what you look like/_

I stood up and pulled him to his feet, our minds still in sync. We ran to the little, crystal clear pond that sat to one side of Storm's garden. Whether because he trusted and knew me or because my own excitement was leaking to him he did not protest. Surprisingly my thoughts were difficult to keep from him. He knew what I was going to do.

We both leaned forward to let our reflections show up. Of course, the watery image was not perfect, but I did not want Storm or Logan to come upon us in the house and ruin the good moment. However he suddenly laughed. "You are red-headed."

"Yes. Logan's nickname suits me." I sighed.

"He does seem to have a knack for giving us names that fit, though they aren't always flattering."

"You don't like being called Slim?" I asked, surprised, since I had taken to using the nickname myself.

"It was strange at first. Now I do sort of like it, though don't tell Logan. I think he likes the idea that we're annoyed by his names."

"Do you mind if I call you Slim?"

A wide smile broke out across his face. "If you call me Slim, I get to call you Red."

I laughed and shoved him playfully, forgetting that of course my intentions were telegraphed by our connected minds. He caught my hands. He was amazingly powerful. I had not realized how strong he'd grown in the good care of the Professor and under the ministrations of the sun.

 _/Jean, Hank is here, do you know where Scott is?/_ The professor suddenly intruded. I quickly disconnected Scott's mind, embarrassed by the implications I knew my family would draw from the ease with which Scott and I shared a mind. Though I doubted the Professor would tease either of us, I did not like the idea that he could mention it to the others.

"Hank is here," I told Scott, though no doubt he'd overheard before my abrupt severing of the connection. "The Professor says he's got something to show us."

**SCOTT**

It had taken Jean some time to get used to the fact that my memory allowed me to walk as well as a seeing person. She still hovered sometimes, afraid I might fall or trip. Today she was both cautious and eager, sometimes tugging on my hand until she remembered that I never walked fast as she did, sometimes pacing herself to my deliberate steps. I missed the touch of her mind in mine. There was something comforting about the link that was now gone.

She knew something I did not, which explained her eagerness. Hank had probably brought a gift. I had been surprised by the gifts they had given me for my birthday. There were times when I realized how little I knew about the social life Jean adored. Despite Hank's amazement at my ability to grasp knowledge, I knew that this would only get me so far in the world. Scholastic-wise I was working on catching up with my peers and my innate understanding of mathematics, combined with the reading I had done prior to Jack's abduction meant I was very close to catching up. Should I ever have the chance to return to school I might be in the same grade as those my age.

We hurried in through the back door and dashed through to the foyer. There Logan was demanding an explanation of the scent of perfume that he smelled on Hank. Hank was cooling explaining it as probably coming from the waitress who had served him his meal only an hour or two before. I grinned. I knew the others were too. There was a comradeship among us that you did not have to see to know.

"Ah, here is the man of the hour," Hank cried, turning the attention of the others from him to me. "Scott I have finished the first pair of glasses. I was determined to get them done by today and with the help of a trusted friend I have managed it. I felt that was the best birthday gift I could offer."

Hank pressed a pair of thick glasses into my hand. "Put them on," Jean cried. "What if they don't work? Shouldn't I try them in a safer place?" I asked.

"We've run every test imaginable. They will work." Hank assured me.

"If it makes you feel better we can go outside and we will stay behind you when you put them on." Xavier suggested.

Jean led the procession outside. Everyone came along to my intense embarrassment. In the wide-open yard they all stood behind me as I carefully unwrapped my bandage and slid the heavy, cool glasses over my eyes. Hank double-checked that they were pressed against my skin at all edges. "Alright Scott, You are set to open your eyes."

I took a deep breath, but I could not do it. What if it didn't work? What if this hope would also shatter?

"Well?" Jean asked.

"There's nothing in front of me, right?" I demanded.

"No there isn't. Open your eyes!" Jean hollered impatiently.

I clenched my fists, gritted my teeth and _opened_ my eyes. I could feel the power rushing out my eyes, but it stopped short against the red tinted glasses. My mouth fell open and I stared at the world. Everything was in different shades of reds, purples, oranges and blacks. Little hints of the actual colors could be made out. I could see!

"It worked, didn't it?" Jean said. I nodded and nearly jumped out of my skin when Hank and Jean came racing around to see my face. I quickly shut my eyes, raising my hands to my face in fear that the glasses would shatter.

"Scott it's alright. We proved that the quartz dispels your beam, remember?" Hank said. "It's okay to look at us."

I held my breath as my hands fell away and my eyes slid open. No deadly power shot my friends and I stared in amazement at the bulky Hank and slender, beautiful Jean. The watery reflection she'd shown me earlier had been tinged with her doubts and did not reflect her true grace. I blushed under the gaze of her eager eyes, amazed that such an angel could take interest in me.

Suddenly I felt overwhelmed. I sat down and began to cry. I had accepted my blindness. I had determined that I would keep my eyes closed for the rest of my life. Never in my wildest dreams had I fathomed these wonderful people who had given their time and effort to learn how I could be normal.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter Fourteen**

**LOGAN**

**S** lim was disoriented by sight at first. He got lost in the house for the first couple days and Jean crushed him at chess until he started playing with his eyes closed, which frustrated Red no end. But in a couple weeks he had adjusted to his sight. He proved to be as intelligent and aware as he had without his sight. His sight granted him a new confidence and the glasses that permitted him this sight gave him an advantage. Now he could see our eyes but we could not see him.

He had the best poker face I'd ever seen. Yet none of us every doubted his honesty.

By the time September rolled around the Professor had had him tested and he was being enrolled in the high school. Between Hank and the Professor, they had caught him up on the few subjects he lacked in, namely science and history. A note regarding an eye condition proved to remove teachers' questions though his classmates were annoyed by his hidden eyes. If not for Miss Popular Jean, Scott might have found himself a lonely outcast in school.

I headed north in October to do some sniffing around. While I was gone, Jean's father received a promotion and her family moved away. After much angst, the Professor offered to board her so she could finish high school in the same place as well as continue her lessons in control of her power. Slim proved to be as excellent for Jean as she was for him. He needed her exuberance to remind him of the good parts of life and his determination drove her to push herself harder.

"Heads up!" Scott hollered. I glanced up and watched Jean threw up a telekinetic shield as he tossed a shovel full of snow at her. Hank grinned at me as we headed towards the numerous trails on snowshoes. There ain't many people I will go into the woods with on such things as hikes but Hank's own enhanced senses matched my own. We vied with each other to be the quietest and see the most animals in their natural habitat. We could come upon them without disturbing them.

Jean drew up a clump of snow and tried to drop it on Scott's head. He shot it out of the air with his beams. This was also something new. In an effort to teach him that his power wasn't a complete curse, the Professor had been working with the kid to gain as much control in using his power as he could. With the assistance of a specially made visor, by Hank of course, he had gained the ability to narrow or widen the beam.

"The Professor believes the quick thinking required in combat will help both Scott and Jean," Hank commented as we both had to move quickly to avoid the sudden snow shower the battle caused. "They enjoy it. Scott uses it to let out some of his boundless energy. He's grown so strong and determined. It takes a good hard day to make him tired at night."

"What about the nightmares?" I asked.

"He keeps a tight lid on them most of the time. I think it is only about once a month that the professor is woken by them. However we discovered that Jean projects her dreams and Scott is usually the one she is projecting too. It's almost as if they share their dreams, though unintentionally," Hank smiled.

Our walk was quiet and good. I won our little contest, incidentally winning a can of beer. Had Hank won I would have had to play him in a game of chess. Although I could play, Slim and the Professor played better, but Hank liked having someone to lord over and he'd never do that to Red. Since Storm didn't play, this left only one person. Me.

Red had tired herself out and was lounging in a chair she had telekinetically formed out of the packing snow. While resting in her icy throne she was forming barrages of snowballs and tossing them at Slim, who was shooting most of them out of the air in big puffs of shattered snow. "Logan! I've got a question." Jean yelled, letting her half-formed barrage fly at Slim, who ducked, as he could not shoot it out the air without risking hitting Jean as she dashed across the yard.

Slim ran after her, overtaking her and tossing a snowball at her. He reached us first and stood with a victorious grin. "What was that for?" She sputtered.

"The pile of snow you just let loose at me, without any way for me to avoid it than by falling on my face into the snow," He replied.

"I will get you back for that," She threatened, before turning back to me, an angelic look on her face. "Logan, Scott and I want to learn to fight."

"What?" I asked. Slim's poker face failed him for once. He tried to look innocent and failed. I suspected he might have instigated Jean's request.

"Well Scott and I were talking about things and we would like to know how to fight," She said. "Just in case things go bad."

I eyed her but neither Hank nor I asked what bad things they might have to defend against. Scott had known or at least remembered more crimes against him than I had. Jean might never have faced them personally but she had glimpsed enough in Slim's mind that she had learned that there were horrors in the world she had been well protected against. Slim was waiting patiently for me to make my decision.

"All right, I'll give it a go," I agreed. "But if you really want to learn you have to be willing to do what I tell you too."

The next morning a wide-awake Slim and a bleary-eyed Red faced me in the basement room we had commandeered and turned into a sort of gym the afternoon before. We went through several stretches as I considered where to begin. I knew Jean had taken a self-defense course before her parents allowed her to ride her bike around town. As for Slim, I wasn't sure.

Within an hour, I discovered that while Jean understood basic techniques, Slim knew street fighting. They would need rather different lessons. I was surprised by the boy's agility. He was quick on his feet and yet packed a wallop. The Professor came down and watched up with a thoughtful look on his face. After I had dismissed them, he remained.

"Well, what are you thinking Chuck?" I asked.

"I think this new venture is a good idea. It will grant Scott confidence and the physical work at control will assist Jean in her quest for mental control," He replied.

"It'll be good for both of them to know how to defend themselves. Mutants ain't common knowledge but how long can that last?" I replied.

**SCOTT**

Life was good. I was safe. I was healthy. Best of all my mutation was accepted and controlled. I could see.

High school was not fun. I was a quick learner, especially in higher math and physics. Jean was popular and that was both a good thing and a bad thing. Her girl friends were kind to me for her sake. Her guy friends were two faced, accepting of me to her face but when she wasn't around, I was the butt of their jokes. For my own part, I did not have many friends. Paul was my only real friend. I tutored him in math.

I learned Logan's fighting lessons quickly, much quicker than Jean in fact. However, because I requested to learn everything twice, once seeing and once blind, we stayed at the same level for some time. Storm began to assist in these lessons with her own style of street fighting. While Logan was a master of martial arts, though he did not remember learning them, Storm was a master of the fighting I had learned in the boys' homes and on the streets to protect myself. Jean disliked the rough exchange of blows, but before long I was able to keep up with Storm in a sparring session, even without my protective glasses.

The professor, whom I had once feared, taught me ethics and philosophy. He never laughed at my many questions but spoke to me honestly, as if I were his equal. Soon we were very close.

Jean was my best friend. I no longer feared the professor and I allowed him to summon me mentally, but it was with Jean that I was completely comfortable in opening my mind. We talked about everything and anything. There was no one who knew me better.

**JEAN**

I missed my family, but sometimes I was glad to live separate from them. Though the professor believed at least one of my parents had to have an active x-gene since I was an Alpha, and though they were both amazingly encouraging, I still felt their unease around me. My sister was worse, since she had never mastered shields and projected her thoughts loudly. Here in the mansion I was safe from the thoughts. Since all of us were mutants, we were all accepting and all of them could use shields to keep from projecting a lot. Logan was the worst at this, but he usually only projected his annoyance at whatever new hobby I had dragged Scott into. Best of all was Scott.

Unlike my friends at school, I could tell him all my fears and concerns as a teenager and a mutant. Once he wasn't afraid of us, once he started coming out of his shell he was a good friend though we were rather opposite. He was quiet, I was loud. He liked getting up early, I liked sleeping in. We rarely agreed on books, movies, or games. But we didn't fight. We talked and debated and laughed.

It was a wonderful winter and spring.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter Fifteen**

**SCOTT**

**I** came downstairs to find Jean scowling at her breakfast, Storm's clouds roiling around the house, Xavier sedately eating his healthy porridge and Logan nowhere in sight. After my normal morning run, I had taken a long shower. I rarely liked to eat breakfast early. Since Logan usually came to the kitchen first and left last, I suspected that the women of the house had scolded the tenacious man.

Jean brightened a little when I sat down next to her.

/ _Logan said something about Storm's clouds. He's out in the garage now./_ She said and showed me an image of Storm commanding a cloud to hover over Logan's head, the static of the threatening lightning causing his already thick head of hair to stand even further on end than normal. I grinned.

"Well children, what do you mean to do with your first day of summer break?" Xavier asked in his quiet cultured way. Jean brightened even more.

"Scott promised to help me get the pool ready," She said. I couldn't remember making that promise but I had had no doubt that my afternoon would be at Jean's disposal. Our weekends had usually been like that. Xavier smiled knowingly.

/ _I suppose this was what you were planning to do?/_ He inquired. I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. This was something I could do without Jean seeing because of my glasses. Despite the frustration I held at my inability to control my power, the glasses hid the most expressive part of my face, giving me an advantage to be able to conceal my emotions.

/ _I planned to spend my afternoon with her./_ I replied.

/ _Don't let her walk over you./_

_/I really want to, sir./_

"What are you going to do today, Professor?" Jean asked.

"I have completed my improvements on Cerebro and mean to test them out today," He replied. I was suddenly aware that he was studying me carefully. I lifted my head and turned it towards him so he knew I was looking back. He smiled kindly. "I have looked into trying to harness the power so that even a non telepath could use it. Perhaps later I could have your help."

I nodded. Jean soon took over the conversation and I listened to her with only half my mind, considering my own unplanned summer cautiously.

**LOGAN**

Once Storm's clouds let up, I headed back inside. Slim was alone in the kitchen, finishing dish duty. Jean had done her part and had abandoned him. He probably didn't care. Jean could walk over him and he'd think she was still the greatest creature in the world. Probably only natural considering they were the only teenagers in the house and since there was no one else at their school who could completely understand them. Xavier worried that Jean abused her power over Scott, but I knew different. She had her way in most things but it was Scott who got her to go to bed when she was sick, Scott who could make her give her all on homework just so she didn't fall behind him, Scott who kept her from trying dangerous things. They didn't get it yet themselves. In their minds, they were just friends. Jean was too distracted by the attention of the jocks at school to face the power Scott's affection had over her and Scott did not understand his own feelings yet, his emotions stunted by the numerous abuses he had suffered.

Jean flew down the stairs as I left Slim putting the last dishes away. Her red hair billowed behind her and she hardly touched the ground as she buoyed herself up with her telekinesis.

"Logan, do you think I could ever truly fly?" She showed me her feet dangling a few inches off the floor.

"Maybe, darling," I replied. "I got to go find Chuck. Don't do anything foolish."

"Scott will help me," She said brightly. I was relieved to hear her decision. Slim would keep her from doing something stupid, like leaping off the roof to learn to fly.

I tiptoed down the hall, fearing that if Storm heard me I might get another little storm around my head. It wasn't my fault the beauty was so tense today. I should have waited to see how she welcomed the others. If Slim didn't have so much energy to burn thanks to the power he pulled from the sun he probably would have been at breakfast with me. While my heightened senses could lend me clues about the physical changes going on in those around me Scott was sensitive to the moods of others, able to hear the slight inflections in our voices.

Chuck was busy with the blasted helmet and computer we called Cerebro. He welcomed me. "Storm is asleep," He smiled knowingly. "I would appreciate you thinking your comments through before blurting them out. Scott may be able to shrug you off but the other residents of our home are subject to fluctuating hormones."

"Sorry Chuck. What did you want to see me about?"

"I wished to ask you, and Storm when her headache clears up, what you would think if I adopted Scott."

"Adopted?"

"Yes. While we are granted guardian status over him, I would like to solidify that bond. I would like to make him my heir," Xavier said quietly.

I considered that carefully. It made sense. Scott would have a future to work towards. If Xavier's little haven continued to expand someone would need to take over if anything ever happened to him and it wasn't like Chuck was going to get married and have kids of his own. He was married to his work. As for becoming the leader of our little sanctuary, Scott excelled at managing Jean, could placate Storm in her hardest times. The kid could get me to talk. More than that, he could formulate a plan of action in half the time of the rest of us, which was why he was starting to be a challenge in our daily practices. Best of all Xavier's plan would grant Scott the security of knowing he belonged. If there was something the kid needed more than anything, it was that he could not be taken away or sent away.

"I like the idea."

Chuck looked relieved. "Just talk with Scott before you do anything. He trusts and likes you, but he may not like the idea of you claiming him."

Scott had never spoken of what Jack Winters had done to him. But we all knew that the boy had been treated more like a piece of property than a human being. Freedom was dear to Slim because it had been denied him so often. Xavier agreed with that plan.

**SCOTT**

Jean and I had spent that last three afternoons filling the pool and getting the chemicals right. We were now setting up the chairs and table. Well I was setting them up while Jean floated around (which was her newest hobby as she tried to teach herself to fly) and cocked them at ridiculous angles. Storm was flying above us, welcoming the sun this morning. Logan was also in sight, watching us like a hunter from his seat in the vast tree that sat just outside the pool gate. No wonder Jean wanted to fly with those two always somewhere off the ground.

"Come on Jean," I complained as I set the last chair in place and she proceeded to use her telekinesis to rearrange the whole set. "It looks fine." I liked order in my world and Jean's attempt to aesthetically place the furniture was messing with the tidy layout I had set up.

/ _Scott are you finished with Jean?/_ The professor touched my mind gently. He was a low hum accompanied by a feeling of safety. Jean was a warm fire and a sudden joy. I was very sensitive to which of them was trying to talk to me. Logan rarely could tell them apart when they were 'talking' into his mind.

/ _Well I got my part done. She is now rearranging all my work./_ I complained, smiling fondly at the red haired beauty. She floated out over the water to view her work from a further distance. "Hey Jean, don't fall in!" I called. I felt the professor's amusement as he glimpsed Jean get startled and nearly lose her concentration.

She focused on moving the table to one side, straining her power to its limits. Suddenly she looked startled and the next moment she'd dropped into the water. The professor, still seeing through my eyes, and I started laughing and I heard Logan chuckle. Jean resurfaced, sputtering and glaring at me. "This is all your fault," She complained, trying to splash me, but I moved out of the way.

 _/Perhaps you would like to come to my study before she decides to use her telekinesis to get the water to you. I have something I would like to discuss with you./_ Seeing Jean forming a ball of water I decided the professor was right.

"The professor wants to see me," I called and ran before she could throw her water at me.

/ _You won't get away that easy. I'll be waiting for you when you come back./_ Her threat made me laugh. If revenge meant this gorgeous creature would still be my best friend I would revel in my drenching.

She removed herself from my mind at my slight hint. I raised my mental shields and knocked at the professor's office door. "Come in," He called, aware that my shields had gone up. The wheelchair bound man did not scare me but I suspected a serious conversation was coming up since he did not telepathically tell me what was going on, and I liked to think my thoughts in private. I entered quietly and stood before his desk.

"Sit down Scott," He said gently. I obeyed, scrambling over my recent behavior. I did not think I had done anything wrong, but my neglected childhood sometime caused me to commit social gaffs unwittingly. Storm and Jean would straighten me out most of the time, but there were some things the professor had to explain. (Since Logan disdained many conventions of social life.)

I sat straight as I could, prepared to take my instruction humbly as I could. The Professor also straightened himself as much as possible. We looked at each other across the desk, Professor Xavier's eyes kind and yet wary. My stomach dropped. Mingled among the terrors of my nighttime dreams were the daytime fears that I would have to leave this haven. It would make sense if they got tired of me. I was hard to live with, I did not deceive myself, between my fears, nightmares, headaches and the ever present fear of the power that the red glasses held in check.

"Scott, I would like to adopt you as my son," Xavier said.

I froze, staring at him at shock. No one had ever even pretended to want me. The 'brain damage' label affixed me after my coma and the horrific headaches had scared any potential caretakers. Could Xavier be serious? I got that he wanted what was best for me, but did he want to take that much responsibility towards me? Did he mean to be a father or did he want to lay claim to me to use me to further his research?

"Why?" I finally asked, watching his response anxiously. He looked surprised at first, perhaps both at the question and my severe tone. I didn't have to be a telepath to see his confusion and then his caution as he realized the resurgence of my old fears. Was I projecting? I didn't know for sure and tightened my hold on my mind.

"I want to give you a home and make you my heir. I love you as if you were my child," Xavier replied. His eyes remained calm and focused. I had discovered that when Jean or the Professor used their mental powers their eyes grew unfocused and the muscles on their faces grew strained. He was making no effort to manipulate my mind.

My vision blurred slightly, and then my optic power burned the tears away. I stood on a narrow bridge above a chasm, with the choice to run from this kind man or to accept his kindness, his love. Xavier was asking me for my trust. He was offering me the family I had prayed for since my first nights in my first foster home, the family I had believed would never be mine again.

I sat tense as a wound up rubber band, so afraid of belonging somewhere, so uncertain if I deserved place in Xavier's home. "Scott, I mean no disrespect to your parents. I think only of you and your future."

The rubber band snapped. The word future did it. This word that spoke of all I had thought would be refused me. I stared at this man offering to be my father. The tears welled up fast and hot too many to be burned away. Several slipped under my glasses and ran down my cheek.

"Thank you sir," I whispered.

"So you agree with it? You will allow me to make you my son?" Xavier asked eagerly. I nodded.

"Can I keep my last name?" I asked. "It's all I have of my parents."

"Of course," Xavier agreed. He rolled around the desk, coming up to me with a huge smile on his face. He wrapped his strong arms around me and suddenly I was sobbing, stunned with how much my life had changed. I leaned into his chest, my father's chest, and I cried, mourning my dead family and marveling at my precious new family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading my story, The Lost Boy. I feel that there could be a sequel in the works for this one detailing how this little community decided to open their doors to more and how the X-Men first began.  
> However, my muse is currently more focused on the Batman Family, so it will not be an immediate sequel.  
> Again thanks for reading, following and favoring my story. Please leave me a comment to let me know if it was a good story and (kindly) let me know where I can improve.  
> Once more, I do not own Cyclops and the rest and am merely borrowing them for the purpose of practicing my craft.


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